A new experience:

Politics are at play in drama series with two very different storylines.

America’s President Donald Trump has a part to play in Neon’s forthcoming second season of The Girlfriend Experience.

The anthology series, set in the world of high-class escorts, features unconnected storylines by two different writers – Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz.

Kerrigan’s episodes take place in Washington DC in the build-up to the 2018 mid-term elections and follows what happens when top Republican political official Erica Myles (Anna Friel) enlists escort provider Anna (Louisa Krause) to help her blackmail a ‘dark money’ fundraiser to get at his donor list.

“Erica and Anna then cross a professional line and start a personal relationship, a sexual relationship,” Kerrigan says, adding Trump’s election led him to rewrite the script to reflect a world where reality was stranger than fiction.

Krause says playing a confident, savvy escort and escort provider who falls in love with another woman was exhilarating.

“I’m all about surrendering to material and I was thrilled to be a part of such a fearless, provocative raw showing of truth,” she says.

Seimetz’s storyline is set in New Mexico, which is a world away from the political machinations of Washington DC.

“My storyline follows a woman named Bria, played by Carmen Ejogo, who is forced to go into witness protection and soon after that she starts dabbling in the world of GFE (Girlfriend Experience),” she says.

Bria is a former escort who met her abusive ex-husband through her job. Although she went into hiding to escape him, her slide back into escorting threatens not only her own safety, but that of her resentful stepdaughter, who is in hiding with her.

“I think it speaks to an emotional truth,” says Ejogo of her storyline, “in dealing not only with the bravery of these women, but also the duplicity of them, the manipulation of them.”