Jessica Biel Joins Searchlight Pictures’ ‘Playmates’

Jessica Biel has found her next feature project in Playmates, the Searchlight flick inspired by filmmaker Lorraine Nicholson’s experiences growing up at the Playboy Mansion.

Biel is playing a wife to Hugh Hefner and former Playboy Playmate — a fictional character we’re told isn’t modeled off any of Hefner’s three wives, specifically.

Bill Pullman is playing Hefner as previously announced, starring alongside child actress Indiana Elle and Lily-Rose Depp. Searchlight announced its acquisition of the Playboy-themed feature package late last month.

Nicholson’s feature directorial debut Playmates adapts her own original script — an L.A.-set coming-of-age story following 13-year-old know-it-all Elle (played by Indiana Elle), who considers the Playboy Mansion her second home. During her time at the Mansion, Elle meets Anna (Depp), one of seven hopefuls vying to be Playmate of the Month. The two form an unlikely friendship and try to help each other get what the other wants most, a magazine cover and a boy.

Producers on Playmates include Alex Orlovsky and Duncan Montgomery of High Frequency Entertainment, as well as Depp. VP Production Richard Ruiz and CE Cornelia Burleigh are overseeing the project for the studio, reporting to Heads of Production and Development DanTram Nguyen and Katie Goodson-Thomas.

An Emmy and two-time Golden Globe nominee for her work as star and exec producer of USA Network’s The Sinner, Biel most recently exec produced and starred opposite Elizabeth Banks in The Better Sister, Prime Video’s limited series based on the novel by Alafair Burke. She came to the thriller following several years away from the screen.

Next up, Biel will be seen starring opposite John Cena in Matchbox: The Movie, a collaboration between Apple, Skydance and Mattel that begins streaming on Apple TV this Friday. She is repped by UTA, LBI Entertainment, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.