The Housemaid is a psychological thriller film directed by Paul Feig and written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, adapted from the bestselling 2022 novel by Freida McFadden.
Based on the Freida McFadden book of the same name that topped global bestseller lists and dropped jaws with its shock twists, director Paul Feig builds a world of picture-perfect elegance atop so many layers of deceit they can only come crashing down spectacularly.
Feig is renowned for the female-led classics like Bridesmaids (Original Screenplay and Supporting Actress, 2011). Here, he turns the tables on the bleak revenge thriller with a sumptuous beauty and all-out sense of entertainment that is nevertheless sharply pointed.
“The delicious fun of this story comes from just how extreme it gets. I always saw The Housemaid as a Nancy Meyers movie gone horribly wrong,” explains Feig, referring to Meyers’ signature playful romances set inside the lightest, brightest, most effortlessly idyllic of homes. “That idea inspired everything from the production design to the whole way we played it. Tension, scares, and humor constantly intertwine in this story, and it was a dream bringing that to life.”
Feig zeroed in on engineering power dynamics that are so topsy-turvy audiences are repeatedly switching whose side they are on…and asking themselves which tantalizing fairy tale they’re buying into. “I love a story that makes you think about what you root for and what you don’t,” Feig says. “It puts a spotlight on the judgments we make about people, situations, and what we think we want. Sometimes, when you finally see the reality underneath things, it upends your whole view of how the world works.”
As for how he controlled a narrative meticulously designed to fly madly off the rails, Feig invokes Hitchcock. “Hitchcock said it’s like pulling a string. If you pull the string too far it breaks and if you don’t pull it enough it sags. We set out to see just how far we could pull the string of this world without it snapping.”
The film’s producers saw Feig as the consummate match for a story that calls at once for pop-cinema style and wicked psychological games. “Paul is great at blending genres, as he’s shown in A Simple Favor and Another Simple Favor. We loved his vision for The Housemaid, and we loved how he made the film into a twisty tale of empowerment,” says producer Todd Lieberman. “For audiences who haven’t read the book, the story will blow them away. And for fans who have, they’re in for a deeply satisfying ride.”
Laura Fischer, Feig’s producing partner at Pretty Dangerous Pictures, adds, “What people loved about the book and will love in the movie is the twists never stop coming. Paul played with that in the most entertaining way possible.”
The Housemaid is a wildly entertaining thriller starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, based on the best-selling book. From director Paul Feig, 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 (Brandon Sklenar). But what begins as a dream job quickly unravels into something far more dangerous — a sexy, seductive game of secrets, scandal, and power. Behind the Winchesters’ closed doors lies a world of shocking twists that will leave you guessing until the very end.
The inspiration for The Housemaid stems directly from McFadden’s novel, which became a viral sensation for its gripping plot and psychological twists
McFadden, a practising medical doctor specialising in brain injury, drew on her understanding of human behaviour and trauma to craft a story that explores themes of class disparity, emotional manipulation, and survival.
“The Housemaid is ultimately the story of escaping a trap, which is something that’s always intrigued me,” says McFadden. “We all feel for someone in a trap, and we all want to see how they might get out.”
A Harvard graduate and physician who treats brain injuries, McFadden first turned to writing as a creative outlet amid the stress of medical school, going on to publish several indie thrillers. But the reaction to The Housemaid erupted on a whole other level when, overnight in 2022, the novel entered cultural phenomenon territory. With readers calling the book a joyful addiction, it passed like wildfire from hand to hand.
The novel went on to sell over 3.5 million copies, spend more than 130 weeks — and counting — on The New York Times Bestseller List, and be translated into 45 different languages. But even before that happened, Lieberman and Elter, sensing the book’s blockbuster potential, approached McFadden for the movie rights. “I really didn’t see all that was coming,” McFadden admits. “It was just surreal.”
To tackle adapting McFadden’s intricate mind games into an intensely visceral and visual ride, the filmmakers turned to screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine.
The screenplay’s unusually high-spirited tone for a psychological thriller, the way the boldness constantly offset the darkness, grabbed Feig instantly on first read. “It’s not a comedy, but audiences will laugh, mostly because they’ll be thinking ‘I can’t believe they just did that’ or they’re so excited that something they hoped would happen does finally happen. And I loved that quality Rebecca brought to it,” he says.
In fact, Sonnenshine nailed something that Feig had long been in search of for a film verging on horror territory without slipping into bleakness. Feig had felt tugged towards the creative thrills of scary movies, but he absolutely did want to go dour. This script nailed the vibrancy for which he’d long been searching. “I love thrillers, but they can get very full of themselves,” Feig observes. “For me, the minute you subtract the fun out of stuff, it becomes less interesting.”
Sonnenshine had already demonstrated rare instincts for pushing commonplace tropes in defiantly fresh and fun directions with the lauded superhero series “The Boys,” which unraveled an action-packed comic book universe into a stunning and timely examination of how power works. For The Housemaid, Sonnenshine’s job was to transfer the novel’s nerve-jolting shifts onto the screen. But equally vital to Sonnenshine was tapping into the universality of Millie’s dilemma, her desperation to find new hope for her life even as it threatens to turn into the stuff of bad dreams.
“Who hasn’t had to deal with a toxic boss or stayed in a job out of sheer desperation?” Sonnenshine reflects. “We can all relate to Millie. But also, I think we’ve all had a person in our life who seems to be one thing, but then things flip, and they betray you. I think that’s part of why so many were drawn to this book. It reminds us of the bad boss, but also that person you liked who turned into your worst nightmare.”
As she began organizing the story’s seen and unseen layers, Sonnenshine had a blast with the characters trading places, allowing each their moment to be profoundly empathetic and unknowable. “You root for Millie at first,” Sonnenshine notes. “But then you start questioning everyone’s motives, including Millie’s. Is anyone a reliable narrator? That’s one of the story’s big mysteries.”
Says Lieberman, “The brilliance of the book was the way it kept you guessing without ever letting up. Rebecca distilled that feeling, along with the novel’s most compelling, essential moments, into something distinctly cinematic.”
Adds Fischer, “Paul and I felt like we got to fall in love twice in rapid succession with this project: first with the novel and then with the screenplay. There were so many great and nuanced details in both that Paul was able to mine.”
In Sonnenshine’s sly construction, the novel’s potent themes, from class warfare to the illusory nature of self-image, all hinged on the vertical layout of the Winchesters’ multi-story home — and her scrambling of the traditional upstairs-downstairs divide. Equally key was poking just enough holes in what the audience believes about what they are seeing to keep them perpetually off guard.
“The script needed to first build strong emotional connections with each character and set the stakes,” notes Sonnenshine. “But at the same time, there are subtle hints from the start that no one is revealing their full truth, which keeps the audience on their toes.”
Beyond the home front, Millie finds the Winchesters are surrounded by a dishy, judgy, posh social circle who further blur the family’s tangled history with their speculative gossip. “The moment Nina leaves the room, the other moms in the neighborhood are like a nest of vipers,” muses Sonnenshine, “and Millie is always listening, gaining new information from them.”
But even the town’s scandalmongers aren’t seeing the full family picture. “In this story, you have to be wary of everyone and everything you hear,” warns Sonnenshine.
McFadden appreciated Sonnenshine’s stealth approach to building anxiety, and the results thrilled her. “Reading Rebecca’s script, I got chills. All the changes they made worked,” says the novelist. “Some were so good, I wished they were in the book.”
For McFadden, the match of Feig with the material was perfect to imbue the story with fresh layers. She loved his vision of leaning into the Winchesters’ sumptuous surfaces and social graces only to dissolve them into exhilarating chaos. “I’ve loved all of Paul’s films. Bridesmaids, A Simple Favor, and his Ghostbusters reboot brought me great joy, and his sense of humor aligns with my own style,” she concludes. “The important thing is that Paul knew exactly how to create a train wreck from which you can’t look away.”
As the movie’s ever-changing guessing game amps up, the elegant ease of the Winchester’s world fractures, then implodes, while Feig craftily employs every element of filmmaking to reverse the very atmosphere he so painstakingly fostered. The ravishing visuals and larger-than-life performances, along with a killer soundtrack and moments that will have audiences gasping in unison, combine to make The Housemaid a quintessential big-screen movie.
Sums up Feig, “Audiences are going to have a lot of fun watching this movie together because those communal reactions are something you just can’t get in your living room. We really engineered this film for an audience to respond to live and in the moment. I’m excited for people to have that experience.”
PAUL FEIG (Director; Producer)
Paul Feig is a DGA Award-winning and Primetime Emmy®-nominated filmmaker, writer, producer, and author known for his signature style and keen eye for talent. His versatile work spans multiple formats and genres, with his films alone grossing over one billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
Feig directed Another Simple Favor, the sequel to his 2018 thriller, which Prime Video released on May 1, 2025. Feig has helmed some of the most successful and beloved comedies of the past two decades. Bridesmaids, the massive box-office hit starring Kristen Wiig, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, and Jon Hamm, grossed over $283 million worldwide and earned Academy Award® nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Golden Globe® nominations for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy. He followed that success with The Heat, a buddy cop comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy that grossed over $220 million globally, and Spy, an action-comedy starring Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, and Rose Byrne, which earned two Golden Globe® nominations. His other films include The School for Good and Evil, a Netflix fantasy adventure that debuted as the #1 film globally in its week of release, and Jackpot!, an action-comedy starring John Cena, Awkwafina, and Simu Liu for Amazon Studios, which was #1 globally on Prime Video for four straight weeks. Feig also directed Last Christmas, a holiday film written by Emma Thompson and starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, as well as A Simple Favor, a stylish thriller starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, and Henry Golding. In 2016, he helmed Ghostbusters, the reboot starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones, which won Favorite Movie at the 2017 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards.
On television, Feig is renowned for creating “Freaks and Geeks,” the beloved and critically acclaimed series that earned him two Primetime Emmy® nominations for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He also served as a director and co-executive producer on “The Office,” earning two Primetime Emmy® nominations and winning the 2009 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series. His sci-fi comedy “Other Space” premiered in 2015 and is now available on DUST.
Feig is the founder of Feigco Entertainment, which has an overall deal with Lionsgate TV. The company specializes in developing edgy and commercial comedies with an emphasis on complex female lead characters. Through Feigco, he has produced films such as Snatched, starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, and the Netflix romantic comedy Someone Great, as well as television projects including Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas, Love Life starring William Jackson Harper and Jessica Williams, “Minx” starring Ophelia Lovibond and Jake Johnson for HBO Max, and “Welcome to Flatch” for Lionsgate TV. In addition, Feig launched Powderkeg, a digital content company dedicated to championing underrepresented voices, with a commitment to female, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC creators. Powderkeg’s projects include the Muslim-American digital short form series “East of La Brea”and the Powderkeg: Fuse program, which produced six short films written and directed by diverse female filmmakers.
Beyond entertainment, Feig created the award-winning gin brand Artingstall’s, which launched in the U.S. and U.K. and won Best Gin and Double Gold at the 2019 WSWA competition. During the 2020 lockdown, he hosted Quarantine Cocktail Time on Instagram, which later inspired a cocktail book released in fall 2022.
Throughout his career, Feig has been recognized for his contributions to film and television. He was selected as the Distinguished Artist for the American Film Institute Conservatory’s Directing Workshop for Women, and was the recipient of the first-ever Artemis Action Rebel Award in 2016. That same year, he received the inaugural Athena Leading Man Award at the Athena Film Festival in recognition of his advocacy for women in film, becoming the first man to be honored by the festival. In 2019, he was presented with the Spirit of the Industry Award by the National Alliance of Theater Owners.
REBECCA SONNENSHINE (Screenwriter)
Screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine is an American writer and producer. A graduate of UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, she was the recipient of the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting and has attended the Film Independent Directors Lab and the Berlinale Talent Campus.
Rebecca wrote the screenplay for The Keeping Hours which was produced by Blumhouse and recently won The Audience Award at the LA Film Festival. Rebecca was the Showrunner on “Archive 81” for Netflix and was an executive producer on “The Boys” at Amazon for Sony, for which she received a Primetime Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for one of her episodes.
Sonnenshine produced the feature film Reversion (2008) which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and Bunny (2000), which was nominated for a Spirit Award. Additional producing credits include “The Crossing”and “Outcast.”This summer, Rebecca is the Showrunner on “Little House on the Prairie” for Netflix, with Joy Coalition and Anonymous Content producing.
FREIDA McFADDEN (Book Author; Executive Producer)
Freida McFadden is a bestselling American author known for her gripping psychological thrillers and medical-themed suspense novels. A practicing physician specializing in brain injury, McFadden seamlessly weaves psychological depth into her stories, creating page-turners filled with unexpected twists.
With multiple bestsellers to her name, McFadden has solidified herself as a master of domestic thrillers. McFadden gained widespread recognition with her hit novel The Housemaid (2022), which became a viral sensation, leading to two sequels: The Housemaid’s Secret (2023) and The Housemaid Is Watching (2024). Some of her other books include The Coworker, Never Lie, The Inmate, The Teacher,and One by One. While her books often draw from themes of deception, manipulation, and hidden secrets, Freida has also written several medically inspired thrillers, such as Brain Damage and The Locked Door, which reflect her expertise in neurology and brain injury.
Freida’s work has been selected as one of Amazon Editors’ best books of the year, she is the winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Paperback, and she is a Goodreads Choice Award winner. Beyond her literary successes, McFadden has been lauded for her contributions to literature, with her novels consistently appearing as #1 on bestseller lists (The New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times, and Publisher’s Weekly), earning praise from both critics and readers alike. To date, her novels have been translated into 40 languages.
