Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Richards returns to acting in ‘Halloween Kills’
Child actor says time on ‘Housewives’ has given her confidence
During a meeting earlier this month with the executives behind “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” Kyle Richards started bawling. She had, she said, “a total meltdown about the show” she has been part of for 11 years.
Outside of the Bravo reality series, she has a happy life.
She and her husband, Mauricio Umansky — founder of the real estate brokerage the Agency — have been married for 25 years. She has five dogs, two live-in house assistants and resides in an $8.2 million mansion.
And, 15 years removed from her last serious role, on “ER,” she’s returning to the job that first made her famous as a child star: acting. She has a prominent supporting role in the horror sequel “Halloween Kills,” now in theaters and streaming on Peacock, reprising a character she originated in the 1978 genre classic. In December, she and Betsy Brandt will co-lead a Christmas movie for Peacock called “The Housewives of the North Pole.” They play two best friends who begin feuding after years of dominating a house-decorating contest.
Which sounds rather tame compared to the real-life intrigue that has transpired this season on “Real Housewives.” And that’s what’s been getting Richards so upset. Not the drama on show, mind you, but the criticism from viewers who don’t like how she’s handled said drama.
“It does just feel like too much sometimes, all of the outside toxic stuff,” says Richards, 52, trying to explain what led to her “breaking point.” “After the meeting, I was texting our group chat with the girls (from the show) and I said, ‘Honestly, I feel like sometimes I just can’t do this. It affects me too much.’ ”
It was, of course, only a fleeting moment of hesitation. She says she loves the cast and the crew too much. And she is also keenly aware of how the show has helped her further her Hollywood career. Richards says she has leveraged her 3.5 million Instagram followers not only to launch her own beverage or beauty brand, but also to convince casting directors and network executives to take a chance on her.
When “Beverly Hills” began in 2010, Richards was cast alongside her sister Kim. Unlike the other women in the group, they didn’t have celebrity husbands or co-own professional sports teams — the siblings’ claim to fame was that they were kid actors. Kim was arguably the more recognizable of the two, having been in the 1970s sitcom “Nanny and the Professor” and the Disney movie “Escape to Witch Mountain.” But when Kim exited “Housewives” after season five, little mention was made of Kyle’s childhood acting, which included Disney’s “The Watcher in the Woods” and the 1980s TV series “Down to Earth.”
She acted less as she grew older, and by the time she had her first child at 19, she retreated from the profession almost entirely to focus on raising a family. When she started “Housewives,” Richards’ youngest daughter was a toddler. Filming the reality show was so time-consuming that she felt she couldn’t handle a return to acting. She fielded offers for cameos as herself or to play “a Beverly Hills whatever,” but she resisted.
“I started thinking: ‘Well, gosh. Now it’s weird, because people just know me as Kyle, and they’re not remembering that I’m an actress.” So she decided to pivot to producing, creating a Paramount Network series inspired by her childhood called “American Woman.” The comedy only lasted one season, but the experience helped her gain the confidence to use her voice, contributing creative suggestions at table reads that previously intimidated her. Now, she’s developing a one-hour scripted drama with a “big network who actually approached me” and a reality show.
Her newfound self-assurance may also have contributed to her return to “Halloween.” Richards attended the 2018 premiere of the last installment in the franchise, and a reporter asked why she wasn’t in the film. She noticed the film’s writer, Danny McBride, standing next to her and decided to ask him: “Why wasn’t I in this?”
As it turned out, McBride was a huge fan of “Beverly Hills” and suggested the idea to director David Gordon Green.
“He was like, ‘You can’t underestimate Kyle Richards!’ ” the filmmaker says with a laugh.
Still, Green wanted to meet with Richards face to face to get a sense of what she was like outside of the “Housewives.”
“I just didn’t know what I was getting into,” he says. “I’m not just trying to do fan service by bringing performers back. You can see someone’s character on a reality show and wonder: Is that reality? And when I sat down with her, she had such a normal vibe to her. She’s very relatable and charismatic and charming and natural.”
But there was still a degree of uncertainty. The part called for Richards to be far grungier and physical than she is on reality TV — and to film a harrowing scene in a North Carolina swamp home to alligators and snakes.
“So I asked: ‘How far are you willing to go?’ ” Green remembers. “And she gives me a priceless, beautiful, hesitant: ‘How far do you need me to go?’ ”
Richards was able to avoid vicious reptiles, though she did break her nose during a different scene. The director says he’s already at work writing her part for the next chapter in the franchise — “Halloween Ends,” scheduled for release next year — and expects “she’ll definitely get a lot of acting work” from the new movie.
Looking ahead to the 12th season of “Housewives” — which begins filming in just a few weeks — Richards says she recently made a vow to herself during one of her morning meditation sessions not to respond to any snarky Instagram comments. That may prove particularly difficult, given that she’s also part of November’s “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip,” a Peacock special shot over eight days as women — Teresa Giudice, Kenya Moore, Ramona Singer and more — from various cities went on vacation together.
As for her acting ambitions, she’s hopeful that her new movies will help her land an acting gig on a scripted series. She’d like to emulate the career of her hero, Betty White, “and be doing this when I’m 100.”
“Even though I worked all my life, being on ‘Real Housewives’ has actually given me the confidence to say: ‘You know what? I don’t like that. Can we stop and do that again?’ ” Richards says. “It’s opened a lot of doors for me. I’ve changed a lot over these 11 years. Doing a show like this is very difficult, but it does help make you grow and change. And applying that confidence to my acting helps.”