Netflix’s The Hunting Wives is quintessential summer escapism, a scandal-filled, soapy thriller about a group of high-end housewives who plot, scheme, seduce, drink… and maybe even commit murder. Based on the book by May Cobb, the story follows East Coast transplant Sophie O’Neill (Brittany Snow) as she moves to East Texas with her family in an attempt to escape the trauma that haunts her.
What she finds is a world of secrets, obsession, and a not insignificant number of personal firearms. And at the center of it all sits social queen Margo Banks (Malin Akerman), wife of an oil billionaire (Dermot Mulroney) with eyes on the governor’s mansion. The friendship that immediately springs up between the two is intense and complicated, a mix of genuine affection and overt fascination that steadily blurs the line between admiration, desire, and straight-up obsession.
We had the chance to chat with series stars Malin Akerman and Brittany Snow about the soapy thriller series and its confident sense of self, and break down the complicated relationship between their characters.
Paste Magazine: I loved the book that TheHunting Wives is based on. May Cobb is such a cool author, and I love, especially this time of year, a really good soapy thriller because it feels like that’s about what my brain can handle in the heat.
Paste: But I’d also love to hear about what you guys think is so appealing about stories like this, and what about The Hunting Wives, specifically, spoke to you.
Brittany Snow: This show is exactly what it’s supposed to be. I don’t know if this was true for Malin, but for me, when I first met the producers, they said to me, ‘This show is supposed to be fun. It’s salacious. There’s so much danger. There are murders and sex and guns and all these things, but it knows what it’s doing and what supposed to be.
I think that’s a big part of what really drew me to it. I just wanted to have a great time with some deep, nuanced characters that get to explore all these different things women go through that aren’t necessarily always seen in these types of shows. Sometimes, the summer, binge-y, beach read shows are just pretty, all fun and surface stuff. They don’t delve into any sort of intricacies. I liked that this show had both, and thought it was something I’d definitely watch. In fact, I thought I’d be mad if I saw it on Netflix and I wasn’t in it. So that’s how I knew it was good.
Akerman: That’s a great way to put it. For me, getting the scripts was really fun. Normally, we get a pilot episode, and that’s all you get—you have to hope that the character arc is great. So this was really, really wonderful to get all eight episodes [at the start] and see where the characters went and how multi-dimensional they are. Just like Brittany said, I always look for something that’s grounded. That’s not a caricature, that’s not vapid and just fluffy. That doesn’t mean that it can’t still be fun and salacious and everything you want in a show like this.
I couldn’t stop reading the script. It was a page-turner, and I just thought, oh my God, if it reads like this, and we execute it properly, this is going to be a seriously binge-worthy show, and I’m all for it. I would watch it too, absolutely. I was all in from page 10.
Paste: Tell me a little bit about Sophie and Margo’s relationship, which I think is really the key to the story on so many levels. It’s so obvious they’re drawn to each other, but in a genuine, non-manipulative way. I think there’s a version of this show that could have gone in the direction of they’re both trying to use each other for something, but nothing about their relationship feels transactional. What does this friendship slash maybe something more provid that these women are missing?
Snow: For Sophie, how I interpreted it was that they both sort of fill in the gaps for each other of things that they’re missing in their own lives. I think Sophie feels a little stuck and stagnant in her life, and in who she thought she’d be as a woman. She has a troubled past, and because of some of the things that have happened to her, like many women, she feels like she has to get really small and not take up a lot of space. She feels, well, resigned, I thin,k to this certain type of life.
And then Margo comes in and represents everything she wishes she could be: Bold and big and unapologetic. All she does is take up space. And I think that’s very alluring to Sophie. In the same sort of way, Sophie symbolizes something Margo is lacking, too, which is someone who really needs her. And Sophie really needs someone to look up to, and is this sort of pure person who is very heart-on-her-sleeve, and Margo is a little not always who she is, so that’s probably really appealing to her.
Akerman: Absolutely. I do think that Sophie comes in and is just really bright and beautiful. Margo is used to hanging out with these women who….well. They are what they are. They’re the sorority clique that she’s hanging out with, so to speak. So when Sophie comes around, she’s this breath of fresh air. A new toy in the toy shop. [laughter] And Margo really wants to bring her into their group because I think, yes, there’s a genuine interest in Sophie as far as who she is. And a lot of times, just as humans, we are drawn to what’s behind the curtains. I think they have things in common that they sense in each other.
But I also think that Margo can be…she has this duality to her, and there are agendas behind the things she does. But the beautiful journey that these two have is that they start to break down each other’s veneers and bring out the authenticity in each other, whether they like it or not.
Paste: Brittany, I find Sophie such a relatable entry point into this series and its world, and one of the things I like best about the show is that it’s honest about the fact that some of the things she originally sees as typical Texas stereotypes are actually kind of fun and exciting, like skeet shooting or boar hunting. What do you think is so freeing for her about Texas versus Boston?
Snow: I think it might start as a political viewpoint for her at first, but it’s also…I think she’s been living in this sort of confinement, which feels safe because she’s got a past that she felt out of control with. So she’s put herself into a box. If she just confines herself to being this kind of woman and this kind of wife with this kind of job, then nothing bad can happen to her. And I think Texas just implies that ideal, because everything is bigger and bolder and more colorful and you shoot things.
I think it’s really alluring to her, the chance to live in that brash and bold way. And also it’s fun! She likes to live like that. You see in—well, I won’t give this away entirely, but there’s a lot more to Sophie in her past that sort of calls to the fact that she maybe used to be like that in a way. I probably shouldn’t have said that. [laughter]
Akerman: She’s got a past, we all do.
Paste: For Margo…she’s so unabashedly authentic, but she’s also an inveterate liar in a lot of ways.
Akerman: Yup. Both can be true.
Paste: It’s probably most people, though maybe not to that degree.
Akerman: I think I look at Margo as a survivor in life. And I think that at a certain point, we start to believe our own lies, and a point where we get in so deep that we don’t really know who the true person is anymore.
Paste: I was going to ask you what element of her character is the “true” Margo, for lack of a better phrase.
Akerman: Well, it’s a really good question. I think a lot of her true self, most of it, comes out when she’s with Sophie. That’s who, for better or worse, I think she starts to explore and unveil who she really is, whether she likes it or not. She’s forced to. And I think she’s quite broken to begin with, but has pieced herself together in a brilliant way and made a real life for herself. But she’s so complicated, which is why I love her.
This is really why we try to bring so much of her past and what she’s protecting into the story, because she has a lot to protect and she has a lot to lose. She’s built her way up to the top. And when you’re at the top you don’t want to go back to the bottom if you’ve been there once before.
Paste: Was there anything particularly challenging for either of you about finding the heart of either of these women for you, or figuring out who they were?
Akerman: Not really.
Snow: I found a lot of relatability with Sophie, and I had such a great, strong, and immediate connection with Malin too, that seemed really organic. Sometimes it can not be fun when you show up to work and the person you have to be best friends with onscreen is not somebody that you would hang out with, but I want to hang out with Malin anyway. [laughter] So it just really worked out.
Akerman: It really did! And it’s weird to say, but on a very different level in a very different life trajectory, there are a lot of similarities between me and Margo. It’s that freedom of I am going to do what I want—within the confines of the law, of course. But I don’t see that I’ve necessarily lived a necessarily traditional life of one foot ahead of the other, and who I am and how I operate in my marriage and as a mother and all that sort of thing.
So I think I can understand Margo in different ways, and I appreciate the fact that she pushes boundaries and that her marriage just isn’t your traditional marriage. And I think that’s okay. To each their own ,and I have met many people who practice different ways of living their lives. And so I like the side of her that is just a free bird. I like to look at myself that way. I think one of the main conversations I have with my husband is, “Please don’t cage me”. There’s something I see in marriages sometimes where people think they own each other. And that’s what I like about Margo as well—as much as she needs to do certain things to stay where she is, with him, I think they give each other a kind of beautiful freedom that I appreciate.
The Hunting Wives is now streaming on Netflix.
Lacy Baugher Milas writes about TV and Books at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB
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