Reba McEntire + Boyfriend Rex Linn Will Co-Star In ‘The Hammer’ Movie on Lifetime
Reba McEntire got her wish! The singer and her boyfriend Rex Linn will both star in a new Lifetime movie called The Hammer, although they could be on opposite sides of the law.
The upcoming television movie also stars McEntire's former Reba co-star, Melissa Peterman, who'll play her onscreen sister. During a media roundtable in March, McEntire teased the project.
"We're trying, I'm trying to get him on this," she said of Linn. "We're supposed to see the script the first of April. So, when we get the script, oh yeah, we'd love to work together. We've been trying to work together ever since we got together two years ago."
The Hammer is filming in the Summer of 2022. Per Deadline, McEntire will play Kim Wheeler, a Nevada district judge who travels between Las Vegas and Reno to dispense justice. Her no-nonsense approach leads to her nickname and the movie’s title. Peterman’s character runs a local brothel and becomes a murder suspect. Linn’s character is somewhere between the two.
As a mysterious cowboy named Bart Crawford, the actor’s motives are unclear through most of the movie (no word on if a romance simmers between Bart and Judge Wheeler). There is also a “tough-talking bailiff” named Vicky who is critical to the action. She is played by actor Kay Shioma Metchie.
As described, McEntire's character in The Hammer is in line with the woman she's played in other television and film projects. Her best-known roles include the long-running CW show, the 1990 movie Tremors and most recently, Barb & Star. In 2021, she starred in a Lifetime Christmas movie called Christmas in Tune.
McEntire will co-produce this new film, which is filming as she prepares to open a restaurant called Reba's Place in Oklahoma. She's also set to be a series regular on Big Sky Season 3 on ABC in 2022.
Linn's best-known role was in the CBS drama CSI: Miami.