By: Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 3/8/2024 – If you have watched any of the installments of the “Real Housewives” franchise, you know there’s not a lot of getting along going on. And for Denise Richards and NeNe Leakes, being immersed in a plot that has the Housewives affiliation, it might seem like old home week.
Richards and Leakes, both veterans of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, are joined by Dancing with the Stars alum Kym Johnson Herjavec along with Canadian media personality, actress, and former video vixen Melyssa Ford in Hunting Housewives on the Lifetime Network.
Hunting Housewives, a suspenseful mystery about four friends who must rely on their wits and determination to survive, premieres Saturday at 8/7 Central on Lifetime, and will stream thereafter.
In Hunting Housewives, friends Karla Dodds (Richards), Rebel Carron-Whitman (Leakes), Joli Symons (Herjavec) and Sharell Bouvier (Ford) head for a much-needed spa retreat weekend away from their husbands, children and busy schedules.
Suddenly, they find themselves in a plane crash in a remote area with very little knowledge about outdoor survival, forcing them to use their wits and whatever is in their designer bags to brave the rugged wilderness.
But there is a twist of lime that adds a very different flavor to this story as the quartet realizes they are not alone, and even frenemies must align to outwit their hunters.
Of course, Hunting Housewives is not Richards or Leakes’ first experience with the Housewives label. Richards starred in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills during Seasons 9 and 10. Leakes was a mainstay on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, appearing as a main cast member in the first seven seasons and then returned in the same capacity for Seasons 10-12.
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Richards, who was joined by Herjavec and Ford for an interview session with members of the entertainment press that included The Hollywood Times said she was captivated by the script from the moment she read it.
“Right away, I was so intrigued by it,” she said. “I love it. It is very different from something Lifetime has done before. And I have done a lot of Lifetime movies.”
Richards pointed to the film’s humor-in-the-face-of-disaster element as a very big reason she signed on to act in the Marco Deufemia-directed film.
“I loved the dark humor in this, and I thought it was so empowering to see this group of women going on a fun trip and then seeing where the challenges came up and what these women were made of, and how strong these women are.” She said, “I loved it as soon as I read it! I thought it would be a fun project to be a part of.”
Herjavec, a long-time friend of Richards, said she was all in on the project from an initial script read as well.
“I am a big fan of the Housewives franchise, so I thought it was kind of Survivor meets the Housewives,” she said, adding the intricacies of the friendships of this quartet of women held her interest as well. “It’s also about the relationships between girlfriends, which I love, and the complexities of our marriages, and all these different emotions you go through during the movie … it’s kind of “Girl Power.” It’s got a lot of humor in it … I thought it would be so fun to do.”
Likewise, Ford pointed to the script as the reason she signed onto this project, despite not knowing who her co-stars would be.
“I had my agent keep from me who the other actresses were until I had read through the script.” Ford said. “I wanted that attitude of a sense of anticipation. So, when I got a chance to find out who was attached to this script, I was like ‘this is a really awesome cast’.”
Ford said her North of the Border heritage came in handy too, as the movie was filmed entirely on location in Canada.
“I am a native Canadian, so I was able to go back home, and that was an added bonus,” she said. “I was super excited about the whole physical element. At the beginning, out there in the outdoors, the storms – the literal storms that we weathered – added an additional layer of authenticity.”
“We had chemistry,” Richards chimed in. “It felt like the three of us bonded right away, and that was so important for this story, having them be best friends on a fun trip. I am so very grateful that we had that chemistry between the three of us.”
That chemistry certainly helped to navigate them out of a perilous situation and back into the comforts of home.
Deufemia directed Hunting Housewives from a script by Paula Tiberius. Beth Stevenson, Nancy Yeaman, Stan Hum and Vanessa Shapiro served as executive producers.
