Netflix’s The Hunting Wives is full of many wild moments, including Malin Åkerman‘s character Margo’s affair with her friend’s 18-year-old son, Brad (George Ferrier).
“The controversy is what appealed to me,” Åkerman told Us Weekly of her character’s scandalous love interest in an interview published on Wednesday, July 23. “[But] the boy that [my character] has moments with is 18. He’s supposed to be of age so that we don’t cross into that border.”
Noting that the show was cutting it “real close” with Brad’s age, she added, “That [underage] element wasn’t thrown in there. That can be a really different conversation. So he is of age — technically — but he is very young. He’s just of age. He also happens to be her best friend’s son.”
The plot point is taken from author May Cobb’s book of the same name. The series follows a woman named Sophie (Brittany Snow) as she becomes entangled in the drama of a group of housewives after relocating from Boston to Texas. In addition to Sophie and Margo forming a complicated romantic relationship, Margo’s affair with Brad winds up at the center of the show’s central murder msytery.
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“That — for me — is more of the controversy. But I’m not trying to tell a story through Margo where I hope people aspire to become her at all,” Åkerman told the outlet about her character. “As we continue to watch, you might change your mind on how you feel about her. But I love all of this stuff and anything that’s plot-driven and that moves the plot forward, I’m happy to explore even [if] it’s gratuitous.”
Åkerman noted that her character uses her sexuality as a form of manipulation on the show. “It’s how a lot of people operate in this world and in order to gain control. So when you have that power — and she’s very aware of it — she knows how to use it and she does,” she stated. “So I like that about her. That’s what becomes controversial and fun and salacious and saucy, and that’s why we want to watch her.”
The aftermath of Margo’s affair with Brad plays out differently on the show than it does in the book. While Margo meets a grim fate in the novel, it is revealed in the series that she killed Brad’s girlfriend Abby (Madison Wolfe) after the high schooler discovered her affair with Brad.
Åkerman told Us Weekly that Cobb gave her “stamp of approval” on the show’s changes from the source material. “[Creator] Rebecca [Cutter] and May Cobb have a really great relationship. They’ve been talking a lot and May was kind of like, ‘Go for it,’” she shared. “She was on set and was really elated to see her characters come to life and really loved the direction that Rebecca went in with the characters and the changes.”
The actress continued, “It’s fun to have some of the changes from the book so that people who are fans of the story can go along and be surprised as well. Hopefully it’s not too far gone where it doesn’t veer too far off the book so that they know the characters. I read the scripts before I read the book, so my bias might be the other way around. But again, I just feel like we get the essence of the characters. We get the world and I hope that fans will like it who’ve read the book.”
The Hunting Wives, Season 1, Now Streaming, Netflix
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