With the birth of her daughter on Tuesday, Louise Linton has premiered the first part of what she calls her “double feature.”
“I’m just really delighted,” says the Scottish actress (Cabin Fever), who is married to producer and former Trump administration treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. The news comes just over a month before the Dec. 12 release of her ribald rom-com Chick Flick, which she wrote, directed, produced and stars in as a bride who leaves her cheating groom at the altar before “diving into the chaos of online dating and then having [her] misadventures go viral,” as she describes the plot of the film, which also stars Sam Page (Grey’s Anatomy, Mad Men).
“It’s kind of a rom-com in the vein of things like Bride Wars, 27 Dresses, Bridesmaids,” adds Linton, who FaceTimed from Austin. “It’s a little bit vulgar, which I also find really funny because I’m British, and I have slightly vulgar humor. And we chose the title Chick Flick, because it’s on the nose, and it’s self aware. It’s not pretending to be something it’s not — just a cute, silly, funny, raunchy movie. It’s light-hearted escapism.”
Linton, who met Mnuchin in 2013, says she “didn’t get to experience all the of the fun insanity” of online dating in her own life, but does have some experience in viral misadventures, having faced a social media firestorm in 2017 over Instagram posts and comments in which she flaunted her government-jet-setting lifestyle with Mnuchin (and for which she later apologized).
“It was extremely educational,” Linton says of her humbling stint in the political limelight. The criticism, she adds, was fair game: “Anyone who is in politics in any way — even if you’re kind of tangentially, just by being married to someone — you’re gonna be in the public eye. It’s always been that way.”
“I’m happy to be back in the movie business.” Chick Flick will be available on most streaming platforms Dec. 12.
A version of this story first appeared in the Nov. 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
