Jessica Biel joins Playmates as Hugh Hefner's wife
Jessica Biel has joined the cast of Playmates, where she will play the wife of Hugh Hefner.
The Searchlight Pictures film cast Biel opposite Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Pullman and Indiana Elle, Variety reported on 6 October. Pullman plays Hefner. Biel’s character is fictional, a former Playmate.
It is an ensemble built around that household. Depp also produces the film in addition to starring. Elle rounds out the central group announced so far.
The film will be written and directed by Lorraine Nicholson. It will mark her feature writing and directorial debut, meaning her first time in both jobs on a cinema-length film.
Behind the camera, the producing team includes Depp alongside Alex Orlovsky and Duncan Montgomery, who are producing via High Frequency Entertainment. Searchlight executives Richard Ruiz and Cornelia Burleigh will oversee the project for the studio.
Biel is best known to television viewers for The Sinner, the crime drama that brought her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Her casting adds an established screen lead to a project led by a first-time feature director.
What makes this stand out is the choice to keep Biel’s role invented. The story uses a real figure in Hefner, but places a fictional wife at its centre.
