Picture: Lionsgate TV
We recently sat down with Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman, the stars of the latest drama, The Hunting Wives, which is heading to Netflix exclusively for a year in the US on July 21st. In our interview, they preview the series, discuss their characters, and share their experiences.
Based on the best-selling novel by May Cobb, The Hunting Wives makes for a darkly addictive, hugely provocative series, packed with mystery and intrigue. This stylish, twist-filled drama is perfect for fans of Netflix series like Dead to Me, Behind Her Eyes, and What/If.
The series follows Sophie O’Neil (Brittany Snow), who moves from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Maple Brooks, Texas, with her family, comprised of husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) and their son. At their new home, they aim for a fresh start to their lives, leaving Sophie’s mysterious, traumatic past behind.
However, when the family arrives in deep red Texas, it’s the ultimate culture shock, especially for Sophie, who meets Margo (Malin Akerman) — a charming, hedonistic, and outgoing socialite — who gradually makes Sophie come out of her shell. As Sophie mixes with Margo and the Hunting Wives, she succumbs to their irresistible charm. Before long, her former vices resurface… and things, slowly but surely, get deadly.
Our interview with stars Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman is below. Check it out!
What’s On Netflix: What initially drew you to your roles on the show? What stood out to you?
Malin Akerman: How are you not drawn to Margo Banks? She is such a fun character, wild and free. She really has a lot to do in this show. I think her arc is vast and wild. And I was very excited to play someone so multidimensional. I got really lucky because all eight episodes were sent to me. And a lot of times, you just get the first episode, and it’s a guessing game as to where the character might go. But having all eight episodes to read and watch her go through what she goes through, there was no way I was not going to do this role. It was just too good to pass on.
Brittany Snow: I felt the same. Reading all the episodes, I got to see the full transition of Sophie’s personality and character and how she really came back to herself in a way and how at the very beginning she kind of starts off a certain way and you don’t suspect her to have so much strength. But she earns that strength and she gets that strength throughout the show.
And I just love playing characters that sort of are the eyes of the audience in a way because it’s a great opportunity to be curious and interested and to show the world as best as I can. I think that Sophie is a great way into this crazy salacious world because she’s learning as she goes and so is the audience. They’re just really nuanced characters that are both good and bad, black and white, everything in between. And that’s something you look for when you’re wanting to do a role.
WoN: Did either of you know about the book before taking the role? Did you read it beforehand — and if you did, what did you learn about the character from the book?
Malin: I didn’t know about the book before the script came in. And now I’m a big fan of May Cobb. My first impression was the script by Rebecca Cutter and she’s also a magnificent writer.
So, hopping from one to the next, as soon as I finished the scripts, I went on to the book, which explores different styles of writing. However, at the same time, they complement each other so well, and really, it’s just a jumping-off point. And it’s really fun to read May Cobb’s descriptions, and she’s so descriptive and titillating the way she writes. So it was great.
I always love when there’s some IP that goes with a script that you can dive in and really get. It’s nice to have that for character development as well, just a little extra piece. I got to discover May Cobb through hunting my scripts.
Brittany: I hadn’t been aware of the book, even though it’s very strange that I hadn’t because that’s very much my genre. I love anything murder mystery related. That’s my go-to.
But I read the scripts first as well and then I read the book afterwards. And I’m really glad I did it in that order because we actually do take some liberties in which the original readers of the book will be surprised because we use the book as a blueprint, but we also kind of make it our own in a way. But it was very helpful also to read the book and find out more about Sophie and what made her tick and kind of fill in those gaps that I was unsure of when creating the character.
It was so helpful to have a book. It’s always helpful to be able to do something like that.
WoN: Malin, your character Margo is seductive, mysterious, and manipulative. How do you prepare to bring that complexity into life?
Malin: I just bring myself, really. That’s just who I am [laughs]. No, it’s a team effort.
It’s conversations with Rebecca and May and the producers initially just to kind of get a sense of what they’re looking for and vice versa, what they see in me that they hope that I can bring to it. But I think ultimately, for me, it’s so much about the intention of the character within scenes and what they need. And so having everything prepared, like we have the Texan accent, we have the wig, we have the costumes, we have the world, is so fun to step into.
But then, ultimately, getting to the bottom of what this woman needs? What does she want? Where is she going? Where is she coming from? And how do you convey that in each scene so that we keep it grounded and they don’t become caricatures of themselves? I always find that’s really important because that’s something that I’m really drawn to when I watch television or film, is that you can be as wild and as crazy, but if it’s not based in something real, then you lose me a little bit.
So I hope that I was able to ground her in certain ways that I was trying to so that we feel the necessity and the survival in her and how important some of these scenes really are to her.
WoN: Brittany, your character gets pulled into this world of secrets and social games. What was the most challenging or surprising part of stepping into that world?
Brittany: I think it’s always a little bit of a challenge to kind of play that duality of curiosity and naivety that kind of makes it interesting and yet not dumb. I think that it’s really challenging to be an actor that is open and nonjudgmental, but also you’re wanting to go on the ride with them because it would be a completely different show if Sophie was just a bumbling girl who didn’t have an opinion about anything and sort of just went along and wasn’t sort of taking in the information in an intelligent way, and yet isn’t a total naive girl and being swept in under false pretences.
I think she gets a little bit more of her footing later on in the show, and that was a challenge at first to play somebody that you want to keep watching this journey with, because you’ve got to root for her. You’ve got to root for her journey and for her to make better choices as she goes along.
WoN: What do you think Sophie really wants from this group of Hunting Wives? Is it belonging, escape, or something different?
Brittany: I think she’s really lost herself as to who she is as a woman. I think, as you learn throughout the show, you kind of learn more and more about things that happened to her that sort of stripped away her identity as a woman and who she wanted to be as a woman in society, but also within herself.
These women, when she sees them, are so bold in their choices and free in a way, and I think that she’s really enticed by that and wants to regain ownership of herself, both sexually and emotionally. I think that’s what draws her in.
WoN: The dynamic between Sophie and Margot is just incredible. It’s intense, it’s electric. How do you two work together to build that tension on screen?
Malin: We don’t get to choose who we’re going to act with. It’s a really big journey for these two. I feel so lucky that I got Brittany as a partner because we hit it off. We were fast friends. We’re still friends to this day. We like to hang out together, and that was the same on set.
If you like your partner, if you enjoy the person that they are off screen and you respect them as the actor that they are, which I really do. I think that Brittany is an exceptional actress, your job just becomes easy because you’re in it together. We had so much fun. We were getting ready for certain scenes, and we were in the bathroom together and just kind of giggling. It was like two schoolgirls just getting ready to go on their first date or something. We had a lot of fun, and I couldn’t have imagined doing it with anybody else.
All these scenes, this journey that they had to go on. I hope that there was this charisma between them and that it jumps off the screen because we definitely felt it as scene partners.
WoN: What was it like working in that atmosphere? Obviously, your accents, the culture. What was it like jumping into that Texas world?
Malin: The accent was a lot of fun. I feel like that always brings another element. It helps get you into character.
It steps you away from yourself just a little bit more, and we had a wonderful dialect coach who helped us out. I think Texas is fun as far as another character in the show. It’s big, it’s unapologetic, and I think that really works for these characters. To have Brittany’s character step into that world, it’s a bit daunting at first. Like she said, we get to watch it through her eyes, and she warms up to it because it can be very fun.
We thank Malin Akerman and Brittany Snow for their time. All eight episodes of The Hunting Wives drop on Netflix in the US on July 21st.
