Anne Hathaway's performance as Mary in David Lowery's "Mother Mary" didn't emerge from nowhere. The director built a deliberate sonic architecture around the character, layering influences from Madonna's complicated relationship with Catholicism, St. Vincent's theological imagination, and the avant-garde sensibilities of FKA twigs and Charli XCX.
Lowery curated a playlist that shaped how Hathaway inhabited the role. Madonna loomed large, her blend of sacred imagery and provocative sexuality providing a template for Mary as someone caught between devotion and desire. St. Vincent, the project of Annie Clark, contributed deeper theological weight. Clark had already constructed an entire mystical backstory for her alter ego, work that informed how Mary could function as both icon and human.
The influence of FKA twigs and Charli XCX brought contemporary songwriting textures into the mix. Their willingness to fracture melody and language, to make the experimental feel intimate, shaped the film's sonic texture and Mary's interiority.
What emerges is a Mary built through layers of feminist reinterpretation. Not the static, decorative figure of tradition, but someone shaped by artists who've spent careers interrogating how women negotiate power, spirituality, and visibility. Lowery understood that casting Hathaway meant understanding the music that would teach her how to be this particular version of a sacred figure.