Jessica Biel has joined Searchlight Pictures’ Playmates, expanding the cast of Lorraine Nicholson’s coming-of-age film set around the Playboy Mansion. Biel will play the wife of Hugh Hefner, portrayed by Bill Pullman, and her character is herself a former Playmate.
There is an important distinction, however: Biel is not playing any of Hefner’s real-life wives. The character has been created specifically for the film and is fictional, despite appearing alongside Pullman’s portrayal of the real Playboy founder.
Biel joins an already intriguing ensemble that includes Lily-Rose Depp and Indiana Elle, with Nicholson writing and directing the movie in what will be her feature directorial debut. Searchlight acquired the project in September, and production is currently preparing to film in Los Angeles.
‘Playmates’ comes from Nicholson’s unusual childhood
Rather than approaching the Playboy Mansion primarily through Hefner, Playmates draws inspiration from Nicholson’s own experiences spending part of her childhood there.
The film follows Elle, a 13-year-old girl played by Indiana Elle who considers the Playboy Mansion her second home. She meets Anna, played by Depp, one of seven women hoping to become Playmate of the Month. The unlikely pair strike up a friendship and attempt to help each other get what they want: Anna wants a magazine cover, while Elle is interested in a boy.
That premise has roots in Nicholson’s real upbringing. In a 2024 essay for Vanity Fair, she wrote about regularly visiting the Playboy Mansion as a child and growing up around Hugh Hefner’s family. Nicholson described a place that could feel almost magical from a child’s perspective while acknowledging that her understanding of its adult world became far more complicated as she grew older.
That personal connection gives Playmates a somewhat different perspective from a conventional movie about Playboy history. Nicholson is using a fictional coming-of-age story to revisit an environment she knew firsthand, rather than simply dramatizing Hefner’s life.
Biel’s role adds another fictional perspective
Biel’s character could become particularly useful to that approach. By making Hefner’s wife a fictional former Playmate rather than recreating one specific historical figure, Nicholson has more freedom to explore the social dynamics around the Mansion without positioning Biel’s performance as a direct biographical portrayal.
The movie is already mixing real and invented characters in that way: Pullman plays Hefner, while Elle and Anna anchor the fictional central story. Biel’s addition appears to extend that balance between recognizable history and Nicholson’s more personal interpretation of the setting.
The project also arrives as Biel becomes more active in feature films again. She stars opposite John Cena in Apple TV’s Matchbox: The Movie, which begins streaming October 9, after spending several years focused largely on television projects such as The Sinner and The Better Sister.
Playmates is currently listed in pre-production, with filming scheduled in Los Angeles across October and November 2026. No release date has been announced yet.
