Brittany Snow opened up about what she believed was one of Hollywood’s unspoken rules: that women over a certain age were quietly pushed aside when it came to intimate or adult scenes.
Speaking on the Las Culturistas podcast, the 39-year-old actress said her hit thriller The Hunting Wives intentionally challenged the idea that only younger women were allowed to be seen as desirable on screen.
Her comments sparked discussions on social media about female empowerment and ageism in the entertainment industry.
Brittany Snow pulled back the curtain on age limits she felt Hollywood quietly imposed on women
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Snow didn’t hold back when she described the age stereotypes she believed still shaped the entertainment industry.
“Hollywood wants to kind of disregard women after the age of 32 for s*x scenes, specifically n*dity and things that are sort of like women coming into their own s*xual, like, prowess,” she said.
Image credits: Las Culturistas
Her latest project became her way of pushing back. In The Hunting Wives, she played Sophie, a woman whose life unraveled after moving from Chicago to a small Texas town.
The role plunged her into a reckless, intoxicating friendship with Margo, played by Malin Akerman, and eventually into a spiral that led to violence within the glamorous but dangerous circle known as the Hunting Wives.
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Snow said the series treated its characters not as youth-centered stereotypes but as fully grown women whose desires and complexities didn’t end at ages like 32, according to the New York Post.
“I think that this was just like, ‘No, we’re going to still have this be very prevalent in a woman’s life, even after she’s of a Hollywood age,’” she explained.
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Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman approached their intimate scenes with confidence and a shared sense of purpose
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Snow said she and Akerman walked into the project with an immediate understanding of what they wanted the show’s intimacy to represent.
“I do think from the very beginning, there was a very clear understanding of what we were making in terms of the women that were on the show, what kind of women we were going to be, that we’re not 20 years old and we’re having these s*x scenes,” Snow shared.
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“We’re in our late 30s, 40s, and we’re going to be powerful, and this is for the woman gaze, and we’re going to go for it.”
She added that neither of them ever hesitated or second-guessed the boldness of the material. “That was never a question. We were never shy about, ‘Oh, I wonder if this is going to be too much.’”
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They had signed up for the intensity. “We knew going into it, and we signed up for that,” Snow said. “And I think that that’s something that we’re proud of.”
Beyond the story, Snow said the dynamic between her and Akerman made the experience feel grounded and safe. In her Self magazine interview, she spoke candidly about how different it felt to film intimate scenes with a woman.
“I’ve found a lot of men in s*x scenes are really, really focused on themselves and how they look and if their abs are looking great and not necessarily thinking about your experience,” she said.
Akerman, however, made the process entirely collaborative. “And with Malin, it was so collaborative in terms of like, ‘Are you OK? Do you want me to do this? Is this OK if I put my hand here?’ Just so much care was taken, which felt really nice,” Snow added.
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The success of The Hunting Wives set the stage for a high-pressure second season
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The Netflix thriller became an unexpected summer standout, pulling in 5.2 million views in its debut week. The response was so strong that the streaming platform fast-tracked its renewal.
Snow and Akerman announced the news in September with an Instagram video in character, writing, “Omg it’s official… ‘THE HUNTING WIVES: SEASON 2’ is coming y’all!!”
Akerman later shared that the turnaround time for the second season was unusually tight.
“Usually, you get a five-month writers’ room, but because it was such a wild success this summer, Netflix has said, ‘We need a summer release. We’re going to go back to work in November. You get a month and a half writers’ room,’” she told Extra. “So, they’re writing feverishly.”
Netizens shared their thoughts about Brittany Snow’s comments on social media
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