Katie Lowes Talks About The Once-In-A-Career Role In ‘The Hunting Wives’

Viewers cannot stop talking about The Hunting Wives. Love it, or not, it’s a twisted thriller with a lot of steamy sex scenes and a fun binge-watch. But it’s not just the sheer amount of nudity that has gotten viewers hot and bothered; as high ratings for this show and a slew of like-minded reality series prove, watching beautiful, wealthy people misbehaving makes for good TV. Perhaps, it’s voyeurism intertwined with a dose of Schadenfreude when karma comes knocking, that serves as a sort of justice.

Katie Lowes, well known for her roles in soapy dramas, said she’s never experienced anything quite like her character Jill, a preacher’s wife and obsessively doting mother with a dark side that’s hidden beneath meticulously coiffed hair and a plastered-on smile. “Jill is the type of juicy character that every actor dreams of playing. This was a once-in-a-career opportunity. ”

The sex-driven drama, originally set to premiere on Starz, is now streaming its first season exclusively on Netflix in the U.S. for one year. Fans are hopefully optimistic that there will be a second season, but there has been no official word yet.

However, the show reached No. 3 on Netflix’s global English TV Top 10 list with 5.2 million views and No. 3 on the U.S. only English TV Top 10 list. Making the cut suggests that we might hear good news soon.

Despite Jill’s obvious issues, Lowes defends her character, who, like many in the show, faces an unfortunate demise. When asked if Jill got what she deserved, Lowes immediately replied with, “Absolutely not! She did nothing wrong!”

Well, as fans of the show know all too well, none of these characters are exactly innocent, but as Lowes points out, Jill killing Chrissy Metz’s Starr was self-defense and justified. “I stand by my character.”

Though the viewer does see Starr approach Jill’s house, shotgun in hand and ready to rumble, we do not see exactly what happened when Jill opened the door. We just know it wasn’t good.

The viewer, like Malin Akerman’s Margo and Jaime Ray Newman’s Callie, see the result of whatever that exchange was, which was Starr’s bloody corpse splayed out on Jill’s pristine kitchen floor. This fan is hoping Lowes and Metz can return in flashbacks in a second season to fill in the blanks on this. Of course, we also need to know what happens between Margo and Brittany Snow’s character, Sophie.

Lowes acknowledges her character’s imperfections and has empathy for her lonely existence. “She has a weird Oedipal obsession with her son. She’s a helicopter parent, but this is a heightened version of that. She needs a lot of therapy. And her marriage is horrible; I think she’s had sex with her husband a handful of times, if that. She has nothing other than her son and the church, but he comes first. I don’t think she’s been loved by anyone or anything in her life. She got married very young and had a baby, and didn’t have many intimate experiences in her life. And so I think a lot of her wiring has gotten crossed.”

As for her character’s dramatic death at the end of what could be a first season, Lowes knew this was the deal when she first signed on to the Rebecca Cutter-helmed drama. Cutter, who served as showrunner, writer, and executive producer, adapted May Cobb’s bestselling novel of the same name for television, and if you’re a fan of The Hunting Wives, her drama Hightown is also streaming on Netflix.

“To say, ‘You c**ts’ and then die is something that will only happen once in my career, and I’m so grateful to Rebecca. Jill deserved the best death scene because I had the best time portraying her. I’ve never received this many texts and calls about a show! I’m just gobsmacked,” she exclaimed, referencing the number of messages she’s received about the numerous steamy sex scenes and frontal nudity woven throughout the eight episodes.

“I’m getting texts from people of all ages, but there’s a difference in what they’re saying. My older friends are commenting on the amount of nudity, including full frontal, and the numerous sex scenes. Younger friends are obsessed with the show’s twists and turns and the plotlines, and they’re not even mentioning the sex at all.”

Currently, Lowes can be seen in three series on Netflix: Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal and Inventing Anna, and now The Hunting Wives. Though she’s well known for sudsy dramas, Lowes is also fantastic in lighter fare, including the adorably charming Merry Kiss Cam, directed by Lisa France. The rom-com, currently streaming on Hulu, has had a surge in viewing following the Coldplay incident.

As Jill, who might just be the only person in the East Texas town of Maple Brook who isn’t fornicating with friends and neighbors behind her husband’s back, Lowes missed out on the steamy sex scenes.

“My clothes stayed on,” she laughed, somewhat relieved about one thing. “I have yet to make that phone call to my dad to prepare him.” As for whether she’d be open to filming sex scenes like several of her co-stars, Lowes replied, “I’m totally game if the storyline calls for it.”

She also explained that she feels differently now about these types of scenes than she did when she was a younger actress, and she praised the show for its brave take on female empowerment around sexuality, admitting it’s had her thinking.

“Once I turned 40, I had this new feeling about sex scenes. I’m just sort of like, ‘F**k it.’ I used to be really careful about things like that. I used to be conscious about being naked. I’ve been naked on stage before, but that was before the invention of the iPhone,” she said, referring to her time at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where such on-stage nudity was considered artsy.

“Nudity was part of a lot of the plays I did, but I haven’t done anything like that since. I’ve always been conscientious, and I don’t know, I’ve sort of been like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I had two kids. I’m in my mid-40s. I’m coming up on menopause.’ I don’t know what that would be like now, but I feel like I could stand to spice it up a little bit.”

She reflected on the behind-the-scenes fun the cast and crew had during the five months of filming in Charlotte, North Carolina. “This was the first time many of us had ever left our children for a job,” adding that they each traveled back and forth, and their families also came to visit. “I had always taken my kids on every job. And now we’re at that crossroads where they’re in school, and I couldn’t pull them out. I had a lot of anxiety about leaving them.”

The experience wasn’t short on fun, she added, saying they had almost as much fun as their respective characters. “We all lived in the same apartment building, like Melrose Place with a pool in the middle. After filming, we’d go honky-tonkin’ at Coyote Joe’s.”

Lowes is filled with gratitude for the entire experience. “I’m a New Yorker, a Long Island girl. What a dream to play a Southern belle…a clutch-your-pearls, the higher-the-hair, closer-to-God, larger-than-life woman. I had so much fun and am so grateful to Rebecca for trusting me with her.”

She hypothesized about a few additional questions, including whether she believes that Jill knew that Margo and Brad were having an affair, and that Margo got pregnant and had an abortion. “I don’t think so because she might have killed her at that point!”

Back to the question about Jill’s death with the possibility of a season two hanging in the air, Lowes said, “I’d follow Rebecca to the ends of the earth and do whatever she wanted. Hopefully, Jill’s ghost will get some revenge.”