Editor’s Note: The following story contains some spoilers for “Mother Mary.”

In David Lowery’s new film, Anne Hathaway plays the titular pop star, Mother Mary. The film depends on the audience accepting Hathaway’s Mary as an instantly recognizable international icon, complete with her own sound and style. In crafting her music, Lowery turned to Charli XCX and producer Jack Antonoff, later joined by FKA twigs, to write and produce the tracks Hathaway would perform.

Lowery discussed the origins and real-life musical inspirations for Hathaway’s character on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast.

Madonna and Catholicism

While Mary and Madonna’s music share little in common, the ’80s and ’90s Queen of Pop had arguably the biggest influence on Hathaway’s character due to Madonna‘s use of Catholic iconography, which had a tremendous impact on Lowery growing up in a deeply Catholic home.

“My parents were very anti-Madonna, and they were very explicit that she was being sacrilegious, not only in the way in which she used that iconography, but in her very name,” said Lowery. “As someone, even as a young child, who balked at the strictures of the Catholic Church, I was very excited about that.”

Today, Lowery is an atheist, having left the Catholic Church a long time ago, but his religious upbringing still has a hold on him. As he told IndieWire, “that iconography is in my bones,” and that as the film’s initial idea developed, it “grew more autobiographical and more Catholic.” In addition to the Mother Mary moniker — which, like Madonna’s name, is a direct reference to the Virgin Mary — Lowery made Mary’s signature look like a halo. He also established that her initial breakout look — the one that made her a star, and landed her the Vogue cover — was an attempt to look like Joan of Arc.

“I really liked the idea of taking that iconography and twisting it,” said Lowery. “That combination of the sacred and the profane is what makes Madonna so captivating. But really, I think she is illuminating what’s sacred in a really specific way, and there’s a degree of reverence and respect for, from my perspective now, how she uses that iconography, that actually makes Catholicism cooler.”

The Playlist

While Lowery was still writing “Mother Mary” — before Hathaway was cast, and Charli XCX and Antonoff had signed on — he created an inspirational playlist that many of his “Mother Mary” collaborators deemed a touchstone for understanding his vision. Lowery said the playlist — which also included film scores by composers Michael Nyman, Max Richter, and Jóhann Jóhannsson — was more tied to how he wanted the film to feel than to a direct influence on Mary’s music, but he recognized how much his collaborators leaned into it.

The playlist included the pop songs that have meant the most to Lowery. “I found something just as sacred and ecstatic in pop music as my parents found in church.” The playlist included songs by Lorde, St. Vincent, Robyn, Taylor Swift, Halsey, James Blake, Aldous Harding, PJ Harvey, Charli XCX, and FKA twigs.

“It’s a lot of my own personal favorite songs. Definitely ‘Green Light’ from Lorde, which is one of my all-time favorites, was on there,” said Lowery. “Certainly Charli and Taylor Swift, and all of the other pop stars that gradually took on an outsize influence as we were putting our superstar together. But for me, it was really more that the playlist was more about capturing the tone of the movie.”

The St. Vincent Parallels

St. Vincent, the moniker used by musician Annie Clark, was the artist on Lowery’s playlist that Hathaway most zereod in on. Hathaway said on the red carpet she listened to St. Vincent’s “The Apocalyspse Song” on repeat, and it became the actress’ “north star” in finding Mary.

Lowery acknowledged the outsized role Hathaway played in developing Mother Mary, both as a character and as a performer, including years of hands-on collaboration to shape the character’s backstory, sound, songwriting, choreography, and look. Beyond St. Vincent’s synth-pop music, Hathaway drew direct inspiration from Clark’s creation of an entire, layered backstory for her alter ego. This supplied the actress with a road map for how her character would do the same.

FKA Twigs’ Involvement

FKA twigs was also on the playlist, with tracks for her 2019 album “Magdalene,” which Lowery listened to repeatedly while writing the film. Although a fan, Lowery initially didn’t think of the English singer/songwriter/producer as a “Mother Mary” influence, nor a potential songwriting collaborator.

“Her music is so distinct,” said Lowery, explaining why he originally didn’t invite FKA twigs to be part of the songwriting process. “But I wanted her to be a part of this movie, so when we were casting, I just thought of her for the Imogen role.”

The turning-point scene with twigs’ Imogen as the driving force is set in the old Dublin Hotel, where Lowery stayed when he was working on his previous film, “The Green Knight.” Although he never saw any ghosts, Lowery was convinced it was haunted by ancient Celtic spirits. The writer/director explained that the critical scene evolved considerably, both as a result of another pop star who happened to be staying at the hotel at the same time, and his subsequent collaboration with twigs.

“Ariana Grande was also staying [at the hotel] because she was doing the Dublin leg of her tour, and I just imagined her being awakened in the middle of the night before having to go on stage in front of 70,000 people because there was a ghost in the room.”

In the role of Imogen, twigs becomes possessed by the ghost that has left Sam (Michaela Coel) and traveled long and far to find Mary. Lowery explained that initially, the scene had more of a “slumber party” vibe, but through working on it with twigs, it evolved into the seance-like sequence in the final film.

“We got together on a weekend before we shot it to work out the blocking, and it just blossomed in the most terrifying way,” said Lowery.

What twigs does with her body and voice (it’s all practical, no CGI, and even the sound effects of her joints cracking are real) in capturing the ghost’s emotional embodiment is an astonishing showcase of her powers as a dancer and physical performer.

“I encourage anyone to go look up any videos of her on her current tour; it is next level. We are just scratching the faintest of surfaces of what she’s capable of,” said Lowery. “It was incredible working with twigs for those four or five days. It was at the midpoint of the shoot, and I feel like that changed the rest of the film. It really cast a spell over everything that happened afterward, and [the sequence] changes the movie too, [and] really sets the movie off in a new direction.”

Lowery no longer cared that twigs was such a singular performer; he didn’t want the collaboration to end and invited her to join Antonoff, Charli XCX, and Hathaway in the song creation process.

Charli XCX and Jack Antonoff

With a pop icon like Charli XCX taking the initial songwriting lead, one would imagine there would be a connective tissue between hers and Mary’s songbooks, but Lowery said that wasn’t the case.

Instead, Charli leaned into her deep knowledge of how pop music works and her innate understanding of how musicians create a persona through their performance. In particular, he credited the “Brat” creator with synthesizing his ideas about how Mary’s music would blend goth and industrial pop. It would be Charli’s first pass at the song “Holy Spirit” that would become the building block for the collaborators to build off. It was at this point that Antonoff jumped in with both feet, and his producing and songwriting role in the careers of pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, and St. Vincent started to take hold.

To hear David Lowery’s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview at the top of this page.