Malin Akerman is clearing up a major mystery surrounding her viral wig on The Hunting Wives, Netflix’s wildly popular murder mystery set in a fictional far-right Texas town.
Akerman plays Margo Banks, a wealthy socialite and leader of a clique of gun-toting, anti-abortion housewives with deadly secrets. Based on May Cobb’s novel of the same name, the debut season premiered last month and captured the zeitgeist for its sleazy, twisty fun, eliciting a ton of buzz online — none the more so than for Akerman’s questionable wig.
During an appearance on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast this week, Akerman confirmed that she did, in fact, don more than one wig following an on set wig emergency.
“I had a wig fitting in L.A. and they go off and make a wig that is sized for my head,” Akerman explained. “We get to North Carolina [to film the show] and put the wig on, and it fits great, but it’s not quite the color or the shape that we had talked about.”
Akerman then recalled showrunner Rebecca Cutter’s displeased facial reaction when she saw the wig for the first time on set.
“She’s like, ‘Oh, this isn’t what we talked about. This isn’t the wig that we were hoping for,'” Akerman recounted, quipping, “It looked a little bit like I’d walked out of Dallas or Dynasty. I’m not gonna lie, it was not great.”
A frantic stylist was able to pull an alternative wig for Akerman from a box of wigs that day, and, while it wasn’t the right size for the actress’ head, the color and length was what the team initially had in mind, so they figured they could “do something with it,” she said.
Akerman used that wig while another one was made, noting that the process takes weeks. “But when it came, it was a different color,” she said of the newly-crafted wig. Cutter and co. then got creative to address the color discrepancy, adding a scene in which Margo gets her hair colored while her husband Jed (Dermot Mulroney) gears up to announce his run for governor.
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“You see me getting glammed up, and I’ve got like tin foil in my hair on the wig because the new wig was lighter,” Akerman explained.
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She noted that she opted out of simply dyeing her natural blonde hair because her “hair quality just wasn’t great at the time,” citing a thyroid issue.
“Thinking of dying it and putting extensions in and stuff, it was just gonna start falling out,” Akerman said. “If we get a second season, we’re going to go with the dyeing.”
Netflix has yet to renew the hit drama for a second season, but given its success on the streamer and the cast’s eagerness to return, a renewal seems likely.
