They plot, they scheme, they seduce, and they drink. They are the loud, lewd, and occasionally lethal ladies who make up the upper crust of Texas high society in The Hunting Wives, the new Netflix show based on the book by May Cobb. On the surface, they’re the crown jewels of their Christian community, but beneath that idyllic facade lies a world of obsession, betrayal, and deadly secrets. And a whole lot of chardonnay.
At the center of it all sits Margo, played by Malin Åkerman, whose gravitational pull keeps the others in her orbit and at bay. Stunning and charismatic, she is the wealthy wife of Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney), a powerful and ambitious man whose aspirations threaten Margo’s extracurricular activities.
Watching from the wings is Sophie O’Neal (played by Brittany Snow), a recent transplant from the East Coast whose recent trauma has dimmed her once-bright spark. She’s drawn to Margo as if by an unseen tether, torn between wanting to be her and simply being near her. Together, the two feed off each other, blurring the lines between admiration and friendship with obsession and desire.
TV Insider sat down with Malin Åkerman and Brittany Snow to talk about wine, women, and wrong, Netflix’s The Hunting Wives.
In a way, the two characters feed off each other. Sophie’s had her spark dimmed due to a recent tragedy, while Margo is in a self-imposed exile and is forced to dull her shine due to her husband’s ambitions. What do you think they take from each other in this strange relationship?
Malin Åkerman: There’s something about them coming together that brings out the authenticity of who they are because they’re both wearing certain veneers when we meet them — protective layers, if you want to say so much. Margo is definitely a survivor and is protecting a lot from her past. But I think the beauty of these two coming together is that they start to open each other up, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
I also think that Margo is someone that you have to be careful with unless you have something that you can hang over her head and say, “If you do this, I will expose you.” So I just think that you’ve got to be careful when you play with fire. And I think Sophie ends up figuring out quite quickly what that is.
Brittany Snow: I do think that both of these women are survivors, but in completely different ways. And I think that Sophie, through the tragedies that have happened to her and the traumas and the things that she’s pushed aside, has sort of created confines around her in which she’s surviving very inward and in a safety mechanism, almost. And she meets Margo, who’s living so outward and so brash and boldly. I think that is really attractive to Sophie, not only for her as someone that she’s interested in, but also as a woman and who she wants to be, who she aspires to be. And I think that that’s what they learn from each other is that there’s no right or wrong way sometimes to survive. They’re very different in that. And I think once Sophie starts learning that not everything is what it seems, I think she really comes back to her own self and begins to understand that she always should have trusted her own survival skills and not someone else’s.
What do you think The Hunting Wives says about female friendship — or the illusion of it?
Malin Åkerman: It is an illusion in some parts. I certainly don’t recognize this group of women in the group of women that I have in my real life. We’re way more authentic and supportive. This group reminds me of a sort of cliquey sorority… It’s not very authentic. It’s a very small town, and gossipy and definitely negative. But I think we need that for this show because that’s what makes it juicy. People like to watch train wrecks. They love to watch reality TV. If it was just normal girls just complimenting each other and holding each other up, then we might not want to watch it as much.
Brittany Snow: I do think that there’s a lot of duality in this show, and there’s a lot of gray, and nothing’s really black and white. And I think that’s what’s so great about this show, is that none of these characters are seemingly all good or all bad. And I do think that is also with female friendships as well. There are moments with Margo and Sophie that are authentic and supportive. And then there are other moments that there aren’t, and that goes with pretty much all the women on the show. And I think those nuances make for a more interesting show than it just being all good friendships all the time.
What drew each of you to your respective roles? Was there a specific scene?
Malin Åkerman: I love everything about Margo Banks. I love that she is so multi-dimensional. As we go throughout the course of this series, we learn so much about her, and she really gets to go to different places. I think the thing that attracted me most to her is the fact that she doesn’t operate within the boundaries of what is normal life and that she is such a free bird, and to be able to live vicariously through her was such a joy.
Brittany Snow: I would say that for Sophie, I really, really appreciated and loved the transformation she goes through. I don’t always play the girl with the wide eyes, the fish out of water. That’s definitely Sophie at the beginning of the show. I don’t want to give anything away, but she doesn’t necessarily end up in that same place because so much happens to her. And as an actor, that’s all you can hope for when you read a script is that you’re not playing the same beat for eight episodes. And so this show really runs the gamut of all different facets of these characters, but also in how we get to play them, what we get to do, the stunts we get to pull, and the scenes we get to try. There’s a lot that we get to do.
Was there a moment on set that was pure joy to shoot?
Malin Åkerman: I’m gonna give two scenes that I loved filming, which were the jet ski scene with Brit where we get to take off on a jet ski, which is so much fun, and going to Coyote Joe‘s and dancing. I mean, having dance partners and dancing all day long. Which, by the way, you have to go to Charlotte and go to Coyote Joe’s because it is such a blast. We would go on the weekends and go dancing because we just loved it so much.
Brittany Snow: There are things that I get to do on the show that no one lets me do normally in my career. And so I felt very seen, that they trusted me enough to do those things and to pull them off. I loved the scenes with all the girls. I know, it seems like female friendships were not at the forefront of the story, but off-screen, it was just hanging out with your best friends all day, gossiping, and talking about what’s going on in our lives. I really just had the most fun on those days when we were all together. I remember looking at the call sheet and being like, “Yay! The Hunting Wives! Yay!”
Were you familiar with the book?
Malin Åkerman: I hadn’t read the book before reading the scripts. Luckily enough, we got sent all eight episodes, which is quite unusual. With TV, you get just the first episode, and you kind of have to do a guessing game as to where your character might go. So it was really lovely to get all eight episodes, and I fell in love with Rebecca Cutter’s writing. It was just such a page-turner. I was so excited. My husband was jealous because I wasn’t giving him any attention. We were on vacation. He’s like, “What are you reading?” So I let him read [it], and then I couldn’t get him to stop reading. I just thought this is a telltale sign that this is going to be a really binge-worthy show… It’s just the way that she writes, it’s really titillating, and it takes you on this journey. So I feel like this marriage between Rebecca Cutter and May Cobb was perfection. They really did an incredible job.
Brittany Snow: Same with me. It definitely was a page-turner. But I think the thing that really spoke to me the most was the intelligence that Rebecca Cutter had in terms of her writing. It was disguised and wrapped up in a bow as a soapy, salacious beach read show, but underneath those layers was social commentary, political commentary, satire… there were all these little markings of all these deeper things, if you are paying attention, you can really dive into. I love that, because you can watch it and not see any of those things, and just enjoy the ride and have fun. And it was something that I wanted to be a part of because I thought it was done in a really smart way. And I loved the characters.
How would you describe the show in one word?
Malin Åkerman: I would say the show is saucy, yeah, saucy is a good.
Brittany Snow: I’m gonna say this show is sexy.
The Hunting Wives, Season 1, Monday, July 21, Netflix