Lily-Rose Depp is heading to the Playboy Mansion for a new coming-of-age drama rooted in director Lorraine Nicholson’s own childhood experiences there.
Searchlight Pictures has acquired Playmates, which Nicholson wrote and will direct. Depp will star as Anna, one of seven women competing to become Playmate of the Month, alongside Indiana Elle and Bill Pullman, according to Deadline.
The story follows 13-year-old Elle, who treats the Mansion as a second home and develops an unlikely friendship with Anna. While Anna is focused on landing a magazine cover, Elle is preoccupied with a boy.
Nicholson, the daughter of Jack Nicholson and Rebecca Broussard, regularly visited the Playboy Mansion for roughly a decade beginning in childhood. She later wrote about her friendships with Hugh Hefner’s sons, the women around the Mansion and how her understanding of the environment changed as she grew older.
Depp Will Play One of Seven Women Competing for Playmate of the Month
Depp’s character enters the story as one of seven women hoping to secure the Playmate of the Month title. Her path crosses with Elle’s inside the Mansion, despite the two characters being at very different stages of their lives.
Depp is also producing Playmates alongside Alex Orlovsky and Duncan Montgomery of High Frequency Entertainment.
The role adds another upcoming project to Depp’s slate following Nosferatu. She is also attached to Robert Eggers’ Werwulf and the Zellner brothers’ Alpha Gang.
Indiana Elle will play the 13-year-old at the center of the film. She made her feature debut in The Housemaid and has also worked on Imperfect Women and The Dink.
Nicholson Grew Up Visiting the Playboy Mansion
Nicholson described her unusual connection to the property in a 2024 Vanity Fair essay, writing that she regularly visited the Mansion from the year she was born in 1990 until around age 11 because many of her childhood friends were there.
She recalled Easter egg hunts, swimming, riding small cars around the tennis courts and seeing the Mansion’s exotic animals. Her nanny had ties to the Hefner household, and Nicholson became close with Hugh Hefner’s sons Marston and Cooper.
Those childhood memories became more complicated as Nicholson got older. She wrote about becoming conscious of the beauty standards represented by the Playmates and gradually understanding the adult world surrounding a place she had experienced very differently as a child.
Nicholson also reflected on allegations made by women about Hefner and the Playboy environment, describing the difficulty of reconciling those accounts with her own memories of the Mansion.
Bill Pullman Will Play Hugh Hefner
Pullman has been cast as Hugh Hefner, although the announced story centers on Elle and Anna rather than making the Playboy founder its lead character.
The Mansion serves as the setting where the two girls’ lives intersect. Anna is pursuing the possibility of appearing in Playboy, while Elle is navigating adolescence inside a place that already feels familiar to her.
Playmates will be Nicholson’s feature directorial debut. She previously wrote and directed the short film Life Boat, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and participated in the AFI Directing Workshop for Women.
Searchlight executives Richard Ruiz and Cornelia Burleigh are overseeing the project for the studio.
No production start date or release date has been announced.