Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: The Hunting Wives

The Hunting Wives: Jackie Dallas on Embracing Texas Drama-Mystery

Jackie Dallas (Stranger Things) spoke with Bleeding Cool about her latest project, the Lionsgate/Netflix drama thriller The Hunting Wives.

Jackie Dallas has accomplished a lot in over a decade on screen since her debut in the parody film Not Another Zombie Movie…About the Living Dead in 2014. She's appeared in a variety of projects across several genres, including Netflix's Stranger Things, Paramount+'s Criminal Minds, Hulu's The Resident, CBS's NCIS franchise, AMC's Fear the Walking Dead, Amazon Freevee's Leverage: Redemption, and the CW's The Winchesters. Her latest is Netflix and Lionsgate's drama mystery thriller The Hunting Wives, which follows former Bostonian Sophie O'Neil (Brittany Snow) who moves with her family to East Texas to start a new life only to succumb to the charms of her new best friend, Margo Banks (Malin Åkerman), while caught in a web of obsession, seduction, and murder. Dallas, who's introduced in the second half of the season, plays Jia-Yi, the campaign manager for Margo's husband, Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney), who's looking to run for governor. She spoke to Bleeding Cool about embracing the original May Cobb novel, working with creator and showrunner Rebecca Perry Cutter, the challenges of playing a character original to the series, and filling in the blanks herself since she wasn't involved in the first half of the season.

The Hunting Wives Star Jackie Dallas on Creative Freedom of Playing Original Character and Immersing Herself into East Texas

What intrigued you about 'The Hunting Wives '?

It's such a fun story. The book is a bestseller for a reason, right? The author, May Cobb, writes such good novels [laughs].

I take it you're familiar with her work before signing on?

I've discovered her work with 'The Hunting Wives.' It was my gateway story, but she's got some good stuff out there.

What can you tell me about working with Rebecca as a showrunner?

Rebecca has such a great vision. She develops such great, complex female characters that she always writes into her shows, and that's one of my favorite things about her and her stories. Working with her, she's collaborative and has a great circle of writers she works with. She was also collaborating with May about adapting the book to the show. There's something to be said about a showrunner who is open to outside ideas, now telling a story, and bringing it to life with the help of everyone else around.

What does a series like this let you do as an actor that you wouldn't normally do?

It's cool because when it's based on something that already exists, it sets the rules for you. This is the world that we live in. These are the types of characters, and so you have something to build from. What was cool for me was that my character is new. She's not from the original book, and so I've got the framework of this world I need to figure out how to belong in, but it gave me a lot of freedom, especially with this being the first season. It gave me a lot of freedom to make [Jia-Yi] my own.

Were there any external inspirations to bring Jia-Yi to life, aside from the script?

I like to find parallels and similarities in a character I can relate to or identify with. I liked how she was written as this smart, ambitious, bold character. She knows what she wants in life and is not afraid to go get it. I try and find bits and pieces so that I can play these roles more authentically, and then all the deceptive things I feel like I can have fun with [laughs].

How did you absorb the narrative when you got the scripts, wrapping your head around the juicy parts and conspiratorial nature of the series?

I come in the latter half of the season. When I binge-watched it last night (July 21st), the whole first half was new to me too, so I was like, "Oh my God! This is so good!" When I got the script and I was reading through it, I had to figure out how to jump into her character mid-season, right? How can I make her fit? How can I make her stand out and be able to compete on the screen with these other bold characters that were written? I took a lot of inspiration from the book, the setting in East Texas. It's got a lot of great, strong themes, and you just have fun with it.

Did you have any familiarity with East Texas, or is it something you had to put your mindset into that world?

It's funny, my last name is Dallas, but I've not lived in Texas before [laughs]. It was fun to imagine, and we didn't film in Texas. We filmed in Charlotte (NC), but I did grow up in the South. I grew up in Florida, so I have a little bit of an inkling of a different mentality of like being in the South versus being in a metropolitan area like Los Angeles. I found a few relatable bits from how I grew up. The culture is very different.

Full disclosure: I was born in East Texas, in Galveston, which is near Houston, but I lived mostly my life in Florida. I can relate to that, and I didn't live long enough in Texas to immerse myself.

I was going to ask you, how did you feel? Did it feel authentic to you?

There was such a cultural hodgepodge there, and the conservative mindset was familiar. Did it feel natural for you on set?

As an actor, I had a lot of fun with it. It's always exciting when you get to play in, I don't want to say, "a make-believe world," because it is rooted in a real place, but I feel like the setting is its own character in the show, right? It must take place in a red state culture; they leaned into that in this show, and so it's a lot of fun. You play a big character; the setting itself adds to the story. I do find that to be immersive as an actor.

The Hunting Wives, which also stars Jaime Ray Newman, Evan Jonigkeit, George Ferrier, Katie Lowes, and Chrissy Metz, is available on Netflix.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!