Jackie Dallas’s Jia-Yi is one of the players making moves in Netflix’s The Hunting Wives, and she loved every second of it. Based on the novel of the same name by May Cobb, the mystery thriller brings some intense drama to the North Carolina shore. Jia-Yi is one of the characters moving around the various blackmail conspiracies, bouncing off her co-stars with a deft hand thanks to Dallas’ performance.
It was an exciting experience for Dallas, who especially loved working with stars that she’s spent years admiring for their other work. During an interview with TVBrittanyF, Jackie Dallas discussed her excitement at joining The Hunting Wives and bringing a little bit of Succession into the North Carolina-set murder mystery.
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The Hunting Wives is based on a book of the same name — what was your experience with the original novel ahead of the show?
Jackie Dallas: It’s an excellent book. I started reading it once I found out about this show, but then once I got the script, I was like, maybe I shouldn’t ruin it for myself [Laughter]. Part of the appeal is the twists and turns and surprises. Working on the show was so cool. I got to work in North Carolina, and it was my first time there. Plus, this cast is stacked. There are so many great actors and actresses that I’ve watched for years in this show. Just getting to play in this world with people that I admire so much in this industry was the most amazing thing for me.
What was your approach to fleshing out Jia-Yi and her place within the show’s dynamics?
I had a lot of freedom to play with my character, because she’s not one of the original characters in the book. That gave me this open slate. I could bring to her whatever I wanted to bring to her, which is so liberating as an actress. I started from a place of, what can I relate to her on? She’s very ambitious, she’s very to the point, she has a goal in mind, and that’s where she wants to be. I started with that little egg, and then I began introducing character traits.
One of my favorite recent shows is Succession. I felt like there were elements of Succession that felt so real. Sometimes, you just want to be ambitious at any cost necessary. I was finding characters that reflect that [ideology] in popular shows and films, and thinking, what can I draw from these ? How can I make that [archetype] my own? How can I find that character that I could portray authentically? At the end of the day, I hope I’m not really like her — but I can have fun with her.
Like you said, this show has such a stacked cast. What excited you about finding that back and forth with your co-stars?
It’s funny. My character has such a different dynamic with every character on the show, and I feel like this is a world where characters aren’t always what they seem to be. Everyone has their own motives for things. So it was really great discovering what that relationship looked like, what that backstory would be between each of the characters. Just seeing how each actor also works and approaches their job. It was so different. Dermot Mulroney was so kind, he was so nice. Brittany Snow had so much pressure on her, being in almost every scene, in almost every episode. She’d always go over her lines, doing the work. Malin Akerman was a little more social.
You always had to feel the room. You had to feel when you could goof around and be silly, when it was time to be serious. And I’m such a fan of all these people. I had reminded myself to calm down, ‘Jackie, don’t be so weird.’ [Laughter] There are just so many amazing actors on this show. I’m a huge fan of so many of the supporting cast and other series regulars, like Chrissy Metz and Katie Lowes. I would have loved to have a chance to have more scenes with all of them. If there was a chance that that could have been in the world, and I would have embraced that for sure.
What was the biggest surprise you discovered while on set for this The Hunting Wives?
There definitely was an evolution in my character from when I first got the script, and I started just reading the words on the page. Then I started thinking about her, how I started imagining her dynamic with the other characters, because it’s such a colorful world, right? The characters are over the top. I mean, I shouldn’t say over the top, but they’re bold characters, right?
Trying to match that energy and that tone and trying to carve out my own little niche in this world. It’s so different when you say the words out loud for the first time. My audition tape looks so different from what we actually filmed. Even on the day, there were a few changes. The writers would pop in and be like, ‘Why don’t you play around with this part right here?’ Sometimes, just the blocking of the scene would change.
It was interesting. You always have to be malleable. You always have to be flexible. If you do the work, you’re ready to turn on a dime. You’re ready to do whatever the director tells you that they want you to do. What’s also kind of challenging is that — well, I should say what’s really cool is that I booked this role off of just a single round self-tape. Sometimes, depending on the characters, they call you back in for callbacks or chemistry research screen tests.
There are so many different rounds. But sometimes, you just get through. I was just floored. My agent calls me. It’s like, ‘Hey, what are you doing on these dates?’ Because I didn’t get like a call back. I didn’t get a re-direct. Every audition, I put something out there that I hope is what they’re looking for. Maybe in this case, it was, but sometimes you get the call back and they’re like ‘That was cool, but let’s try it this way.’ A lot of the tweaking happened for me on set, on the day. I had to be mentally nimble.
The Hunting Wives is now streaming on Netflix
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