“Hunting Housewives,” Denise Richards’ latest Lifetime movie, airing tonight, is definitely not about four housewives who go hunting in the woods.
Rather it’s wives who thought they were flying to a weekend resort and instead find themselves surviving their plane crash only to being monitored and hunted in a diabolical (on Lifetime diabolical is practically a daily phenomenon) twist from the sick mind of Richards’ husband.
Richards, now 53 and a Lifetime veteran (“The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders,” “Killer Cheer Mom”), likes that “Hunting Housewives” charts a different course.
“I was sent the script and right away was intrigued,” she said during a virtual press conference earlier this week. “I’ve done a lot of Lifetime movies that were very dramatic (outside of the Christmas movies I’ve done) but I loved the dark humor in this.”
Could she relate to her hunted housewife Karla Dodds?
“I grew up camping which is close to my character according to my husband. He had money, I didn’t come from money. I can relate to growing up similar to that in the movie. In this movie,” she added, “we don’t like our husbands. But in life I do.
“And I thought it was so empowering to see these women go on a fun trip and then to see these challenges that came up and what these women were made of and how strong these women were. I loved it as soon as I read it
“People like seeing women who are stronger than they thought they were. Emotionally and physically! They were put in a completely different environment, so different from anything they’ve ever done, and were able to survive and be stronger than they thought they could.”
Richards knows why it all works: “We naturally had a chemistry with each other — and a trust with each other. That’s one of the biggest things being an actor when you have to be vulnerable. The three of us” — Kym Johnson Herjavec and Melyssa Ford were with her at the press conference – “bonded right away. That was so important for this story, having us be best friends going on a fun trip.
“I’m so lucky and grateful that we had that chemistry between us doing these scenes. It was so fun! It really was.”
Except for the bugs.
“For me, physically laying in the mud at night in the woods, I was nervous. Melyssa does not like bugs either. She and I got bit all the time.
“Emotionally, it was wrapping my head around my relationship with my husband. But the physical part – the bugs! We were practically drowning in bug spray.”
“Hunting Housewives” airs at 8 p.m. on Lifetime March 9.
