Uma Thurman and Phoebe Dynevor to play forbidden lovers in The Housekeeper

Uma Thurman and Phoebe Dynevor have been cast as “forbidden lovers” in the upcoming period drama The Housekeeper. 

Based on Rose Tremain’s short story The American, the film will fictionalise the inspiration behind Daphne Du Maurier’s classic 1938 gothic novel Rebecca. 

Directed by Richard Eyre, the story follows Danni (Thurman), a housekeeper at the historic Manderville Hall in Cornwall, England, run by the wealthy and widowed Lord DeWithers (Anthony Hopkins). As per Variety, she “falls prey to the glance” of Du Maurier, a young and beautiful novelist.

In Tremain’s story, the housekeeper is shocked to discover that she served as the inspiration for the villainous Mrs Danvers in Du Maurier’s Rebecca. 

Eyre said in a statement that the source material “grapples with love, fear, fiction, desire, ambition, death and legacy — perhaps epic, whilst providing us with the delicacy of most complex, nuanced characters and unexpected shifts in audience sympathy.

“The cast and I hold in our palm a story as rich and turbulent as the landscape that it inhabits, with Manderville Hall holding secrets and emotional intrigue within its historic walls.”

The Housekeeper is being launched at AFM by Embankment Films.

Hugo Grumbar, the production company’s partner and co-founder, described Eyre, the director of classics such as Iris (2001) and Notes on a Scandal (2005), as a “master storyteller whose films elicit award-winning performances”.

“Beyond the magnetism of its romance,” he added, “The Housekeeper brims with inventive twists and turns of desire and deceit, and mirrors today’s challenge to find purpose and identity.”

Over the course of her career, Thurman has been lauded for her performances in iconic films such as Dangerous Liasions (1988), Pulp Fiction (1994), which earned her an Academy Award nomination, and Kill Bill: Vol 1 and 2 (2003, 2004).

More recently, she starred as the President of the United States in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue (2023). Hailed as an instant LGBTQIA+ classic, the rom-com has been confirmed to return for a sequel. While Thurman is yet to be confirmed, she is expected to reprise her role.

Dynevor memorably rose to international prominence in the first season of Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020), and has since starred in the biographical drama The Colour Room (2021) and erotic psychological thriller Fair Play (2023).

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