Ricki Lake is stepping back in front of the camera. The veteran actress and talk show host has signed on to star in a Lifetime movie about Susan Cox Powell, the Utah mother whose 2009 disappearance became one of the most-covered missing-person cases of its era. The project carries the title "She Married Her Murderer: The Susan Cox Powell Story," and Lake's involvement marks her first substantial acting role in years, a return that will surprise viewers who know her best as a daytime host rather than a dramatic performer.
Lake confirmed the casting in an exclusive statement, framing the decision as something closer to a calling than a career move. She said she had been searching for a story with real weight behind it, and that Susan's case stayed with her long after she first read about it. Playing a woman who was failed repeatedly by the systems meant to protect her, Lake added, comes with a responsibility she does not take lightly.
Her résumé makes the pivot less abrupt than it might appear. Lake first became a household name in the late 1980s as the breakout star of John Waters' "Hairspray," then went on to appear in Waters' "Cry-Baby" and a string of other projects before reinventing herself as the anchor of her own syndicated talk show. That program ran for more than a decade and turned her into a fixture of daytime television, but it also overshadowed her acting work in the public imagination. In recent years she has drifted toward documentary filmmaking and producing, stepping behind the camera instead of in front of it.
A Case That Refuses to Fade
The Susan Cox Powell story has haunted the public since December 2009, when the 28-year-old mother of two vanished from her home in West Jordan, Utah. Her husband, Josh Powell, offered shifting explanations for her whereabouts and was never charged in connection with her disappearance. The case took a still darker turn in February 2012, when Josh Powell killed himself and the couple's two young sons in an explosion at a home in Graham, Washington, during what was supposed to be a supervised visit. Investigators later identified Josh Powell as the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance, though her body has never been found.
Lifetime has built a significant chunk of its original movie brand around ripped-from-the-headlines stories, and this one fits the template precisely: a sympathetic victim, a labyrinth of legal and familial failures, and a resolution that offers grief rather than closure. The network has not released a premiere date, casting details beyond Lake, or a production timeline, and a spokesperson declined to elaborate on the scope of the film.
For Lake, the role represents a reunion of sorts with the kind of material that first drew her to performing, though on far more somber terms than a Waters musical. She described Susan as a woman whose story deserves more than tabloid treatment, and said she hopes the film directs attention back to the unanswered questions rather than the spectacle that surrounded them.
Why This Casting Matters
Lake's return carries symbolic weight beyond a single television movie. She belongs to a generation of performers who moved fluidly between genres and mediums before the current era of rigid career branding, and her willingness to take on a project this emotionally demanding suggests she is not interested in a nostalgic victory lap. She is choosing material with a point of view.
There is also the matter of visibility. True-crime adaptations occupy an increasingly crowded field, and the ones that endure tend to be anchored by a performance that refuses to reduce a real person to a plot device. Whether Lake can carry that burden is the central question the film will have to answer. Her talk show years taught her how to hold an audience's attention through difficult conversations, a skill that may translate better to this material than any previous dramatic credit.
Lifetime has not announced supporting cast, a director, or a writer. Those decisions will shape how the network handles the case's most sensitive dimensions, particularly the deaths of the two children, which any responsible retelling must confront without exploitation. For now, the story belongs to Lake, who appears to understand exactly what she has signed up for. She said she wants viewers to finish the film thinking about the woman at its center, not the man who ended so much. That, more than any ratings projection, is the measure she seems to be holding herself to.
Source: Hollywood Reporter