This week, nation famous person Reba McEntire returns to the display as “unfastened cannon” touring circuit decide Kim Wheeler in a brand new Lifetime film, Reba McEntire’s The Hammer — and likewise returning, by McEntire’s facet, is her offscreen love curiosity, Rex Linn. McEntire and Linn, who began relationship in 2020 however met approach again in 1991 once they co-starred in considered one of McEntire’s first TV tasks, The Gambler Returns with Kenny Rogers, have additionally labored collectively in Younger Sheldon and Massive Sky. However McEntire appears particularly delighted to share screentime with Linn’s The Hammer character, Bart Crawford, described in a Lifetime press launch as “a mysterious cowboy with unknown motives.”
“Nicely, I assumed it was actually neat that he made a really good-looking mysterious cowboy, too,” McEntire tells Yahoo Leisure with a sly, flirty smirk.
The pure, straightforward chemistry between McEntire and Linn is quickly obvious in all of their Hammer scenes. McEntire reveals that she was “slightly rusty on my appearing” earlier than capturing the movie, and says Linn “helped me tremendously. … By the point we obtained to do our scenes collectively, it was similar to speaking to one another. I really like working with Rex. He is an excellent actor, and I simply get the most important kick out of the best way he chooses to do a scene after which change it up and do it another approach. I’ve realized loads from him.”
The true-life, late-in-life love story between McEntire and Linn really is the stuff of Lifetime motion pictures. Whereas McEntire admits that when she met Linn 32 years in the past — not lengthy after she’d married her second husband, Narvel Blackstock — no sparks flew, they “simply stored the friendship. And timing is the whole lot, and the whole lot occurs for a motive.”
When McEntire shot an look on Linn’s present Younger Sheldon in January 2020, about 4 years after her 26-year marriage to Blackstock had ended, she and Linn reconnected and went out for dinner, though she “did not know then that it was a date.” Actually, when Linn first requested her out, she declined. “I mentioned, ‘Can I take a raincheck?’ I’d had a protracted day, and I used to be exhausted.” She finally met up with Linn, Younger Sheldon actress Melissa Peterman (McEntire’s former Reba sitcom costar and present The Hammer castmate), and her tour supervisor, Marne McLyman, at a restaurant in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
“I left [McLyman] out on the valet station; I simply had to get in and see Rex. And, you already know, Melissa and Marne mentioned it was a date!” says McEntire. “We simply had a very nice night, and I hugged his neck goodbye to get within the automotive with Marne to return to the resort. And I mentioned, ‘Come see me.’ And on June 16, he did.”
McEntire and Linn’s second in-person date most likely would have occurred loads ahead of June 2020, if unlucky life and world circumstances hadn’t intervened. However they maintained a distant courtship till Linn might take McEntire up on her invitation. Upon McEntire’s return to Nashville after their fateful Sherman Oaks dinner, she and Linn “stored texting,” however sadly, she quickly realized that her mom had bladder most cancers. “I used to be texting him and he mentioned, ‘Hey, name me any time, if you could discuss.’ And I simply known as him and we talked every single day; I believe that was across the 1st of February. And we talked every single day since,” McEntire recollects.
McEntire’s mom died on March 14, 2020, however that very same month, the COVID-19 pandemic started, so Linn could not come out to Nashville to go to. However he and McEntire finally reunited in June. “I’ve simply beloved him much more for getting on a airplane in the course of the pandemic,” McEntire gushes. “So, it was real love, and it is lasted, and we’re having extra enjoyable now than we did after we first obtained collectively.”
McEntire, now age 67, didn’t count on to fall in love once more, with 66-year-old Linn or anybody else — “I wasn’t in search of it, wasn’t all,” she insists — and when Yahoo Leisure asks her to present recommendation to any singles of a sure age who would possibly suppose their probabilities of discovering romance have handed them by, she chuckles, “Nicely, I promise you, I am the final particular person you could begin asking love recommendation, after being divorced twice!”
Extra severely, McEntire, who was additionally married to steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987, solutions: “It is a good suggestion to type of make a psychological observe of previous feedback from previous relationships, in regards to the belongings you did fallacious, and analyze that — admit if that is proper, or if that it was fallacious, what I did, and methods to be a greater associate, be a greater listener, be a extra thoughtful, take extra time. As a substitute of realizing that there is 50,000 issues I might slightly be doing, perhaps sit down and watch a soccer recreation, or 4 [games] in sooner or later. Sure, that is real love! I am an even bigger fan of soccer now — that is what’s come out of this! However wow, I really like hanging with Rex. We’re good associates. We love one another, and it is simply actually, actually particular. And I am very grateful and grateful to God that he got here into my life, at this era of my life. I imply, it is the greatest.”
One other incredible growth of McEntire’s private {and professional} partnership with Linn has been the chance to tackle edgier, darker, extra dramatic appearing roles alongside him, whether or not it’s in David E. Kelley’s crime thriller Massive Sky (during which she and Linn painting a married couple) or in The Hammer, which tackles critical topics like drug coverage reform and sexual misconduct. “Simply to do one thing totally different, more difficult… it is simply a lot enjoyable to go darkish,” says McEntire. “I am referred to as a really bubbly, uptempo particular person, and to enter that darkish place was simply fascinating. It was enjoyable to play with.”
However because it seems, again within the ‘90s, McEntire had a possibility to tackle one other kind of against-type dramatic position: Molly Brown in Titanic, which finally went to Oscar-winner Kathy Bates. Titanic might have modified the whole course of McEntire’s appearing profession, however as she has already identified, timing actually is the whole lot.
“I met with James Cameron. I went and auditioned in particular person and needed the half actually, actually dangerous,” McEntire reveals. “However when our schedules did not line up, I needed to go together with my schedule of [concert] touring, as a result of I had all my band, crew, the entire venues already booked. And once they mentioned, ‘No, not these three months; we want these three months,’ I needed to go, since you’ve obtained lots of people’s livelihoods standing there you. And if we had have moved these dates, properly, we would not have gotten the venues that we needed. … I wanted I might have [acted in Titanic], however it’s important to deal with your folks. They usually [the band] had been primary.”
Greater than 25 years later, McEntire has no regrets. Her profession is extra bustling than ever, with “a variety of plates spinning” in 2023, together with her first-ever headlining live shows at two iconic venues, the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Sq. Backyard; “much more appearing issues in growth,” probably with Linn; and different ventures like a brand new Oklahoma restaurant known as Reba’s Place, a clothes line at Dillard’s, a footwear line with Justin Boots, and a brand new way of life ebook. And he or she’s definitely having fun with her enjoyable way of life for the time being.
“I’m very grateful, very grateful, and I completely didn’t suppose, even three years in the past, that I might be as busy as I’m now,” McEntire says, beaming. “However I really like being busy. I like to work. Rex and I each like to work — however I prefer to play laborious, too. I like to go on holidays. I like to see the world. And we’re going do some little bit of that, too, now that we have labored so laborious in 2022. However boy, when the job provides are available in, if it is one thing that you just actually need do, we’ll be doing it — in the event that they allow us to!”
Reba McEntire’s The Hammer, executive-produced by and starring McEntire, premieres Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. on Lifetime. Try McEntire’s full, prolonged Yahoo Leisure interview above for extra dialogue of the movie, in addition to speak about her appearing debut within the 1990 Kevin Bacon cult basic Tremors, the challenges of being a girl in nation music, and whether or not she and Linn will ever report a musical duet.
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