{"id":530326,"date":"2026-06-11T18:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530326\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T18:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:53:12","slug":"paul-anthony-kelly-joins-the-housemaids-secret-in-film-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530326\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Anthony Kelly Joins ‘The Housemaid’s Secret’ In Film Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE:<\/strong>\u00a0Hot off his breakout turn as John F. Kennedy Jr. in FX\u2019s\u00a0Love Story, Paul Anthony Kelly<\/a> has inked a deal to join\u00a0The Housemaid\u2019s Secret, Lionsgate<\/a>\u2018s sequel to its recent holiday box office hit\u00a0The Housemaid, based on the bestseller by Freida McFadden.<\/p>\n

\n\tKelly joins a cast led by the returning Sydney Sweeney and newcomer Kirsten Dunst. Making his feature film debut, he will play Douglas Garrick, the billionaire husband of Dunst\u2019s Wendy, and the new employer of our housemaid protagonist, Millie (Sweeney).<\/p>\n

\n\tPaul Feig is returning to direct the sequel, working from a script by\u00a0The Housemaid\u00a0adapter Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the second novel in McFadden\u2019s bestselling thriller trilogy. Producers include Hidden Pictures\u2019 Todd Lieberman; Laura Fischer and Feig for Pretty Dangerous Pictures; and Sweeney, through her newly launched Honey Trap<\/a> banner.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso returning to the cast is Michele Morrone, who plays Millie\u2019s ally turned love interest, Enzo.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarly Elter, who oversaw the first movie for Hidden Pictures, is returning as executive producer. Alex Young of Hidden Pictures will also exec produce, with Honey Trap\u2019s Kaylee McGregor co-producing, and Chelsea Kujawa and Maria Ascanio overseeing the film for Lionsgate. It\u2019s slated to open in wide release on December 17, 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tFeig\u2019s adaptation of\u00a0The Housemaid, co-starring Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, broke out big at the box office this past December, grossing over $400M, with Lionsgate quickly greenlighting the sequel. Based on McFadden\u2019s 2022 page-turner, the film plunges audiences into a twisted world where perfection is an illusion, and nothing is as it seems. Trying to escape her past, Millie (Sweeney) accepts a job as a live-in housemaid for the wealthy Nina (Seyfried) and Andrew Winchester (Sklenar). But what begins as a dream job quickly unravels into something far more dangerous \u2014 a sexy, seductive game of secrets, scandal, and power.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn\u00a0The Housemaid\u2019s Secret, Millie returns, taking a job keeping house for yet another woman she\u2019s never allowed to see \u2014 only to discover the truth behind the locked door that threatens to expose secrets far darker than her own.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe\u00a0Housemaid\u00a0books have sold over 12 million units. Translated into 40 languages, sequel\u00a0The Housemaid\u2019s Secret\u00a0has been a New York Times bestseller for more than 70 weeks and won the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller. McFadden published the third book in the series,\u00a0The Housemaid Is Watching, in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tLionsgate identified and optioned McFadden\u2019s literary trilogy (plus a fourth entry, a short story) long before the books gained traction, recognizing the series\u2019 potential, and with\u00a0The Housemaid\u2019s Secret\u00a0set to enter production later this year, anticipates adapting more of McFadden\u2019s Housemaid thrillers.<\/p>\n

\n\tKelly is riding high this year, with Emmy buzz for his first big starring role opposite Sarah Pidgeon in Ryan Murphy\u2019s\u00a0Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. He landed the part of JFK Jr. after a months-long search involving around 1,000 actors \u2014 cast as a newcomer just a few weeks out from production, after 13 years spent working toward his breakthrough moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tClearly impressed with Kelly\u2019s work, Murphy has already enlisted him for a role in the next season of his long-running\u00a0American Horror Story. The actor is repped by Innovative Artists, Luber Roklin, and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE:\u00a0Hot off his breakout turn as John F. Kennedy Jr. in FX\u2019s\u00a0Love Story, Paul Anthony Kelly has inked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17,6085,183646,228548],"class_list":["post-530326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lionsgate","tag-paul-anthony-kelly","tag-the-housemaids-secret"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116732993119417070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}