Searchlight Lands Lorraine Nicholson’s ‘Playmates’ Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Pullman & Indiana Elle; Pullman Plays Hugh Hefner In Coming-Of-Age Story

Searchlight Pictures has snapped up Playmates, a hot Playboy-themed package starring Lily-Rose Depp (Nosferatu), Bill Pullman (Independence Day) and Indiana Elle (The Housemaid).

Marking the feature debut of Lorraine Nicholson, who directs from her own script, Playmates is 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 there, she 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.

Nicholson — daughter of three-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson and actress Rebecca Broussard — based the film loosely around her experiences growing up at the Playboy Mansion.

Pullman is set to play Playboy’s Hugh Heffner.

Alex Orlovsky and Duncan Montgomery are producing for High Frequency Entertainment alongside Depp. VP of Production Richard Ruiz and Creative Executive Cornelia Burleigh are overseeing the project for Searchlight Pictures, reporting to Heads of Production and Development DanTram Nguyen and Katie Goodson-Thomas.

Prior to Playmates, Lorraine Nicholson wrote and directed the short film Life Boat, starring Stephen Dorff, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival. A graduate of the AFI Directing Workshop for Women and a contributor to Vanity Fair and W magazines, she is repped by CAA, Adam Paulsen of Canopy Media Partners and Hansen Jacobson Teller.

Depp recently reteamed with Robert Eggers for his upcoming horror film Werwulf after drawing widespread acclaim for her work in his Focus flick Nosferatu. Also soon to be seen in the Zellner Brothers’ sci-fi comedy Alpha Gang, which has recently played both Telluride and TIFF, she is repped by CAA, Markham, Froggatt & Irwin, Agence Adequat and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.

Pullman’s recent credits include Netflix’s The Boroughs, Everybody Digs Bill Evans and Paul Schrader’s The Basics of Philosophy, which premiered at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, with upcoming projects including A24’s Famous and Spaceballs: The New One. He is repped by CAA.

Elle broke out with the role of Cecelia Winchester, opposite Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar and Sydney Sweeney, in the recent Lionsgate hit The Housemaid. She followed that up with a supporting role as the daughter of Elisabeth Moss in Apple’s limited series Imperfect Woman, as well as a supporting role in Apple’s comedy The Dink. She is repped by Sovereign Talent Group and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.

This fall, Searchlight will have two Oscar contenders in theaters: Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, out November 6, and Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, out December 4. Playmates marks the studio’s second splashy film announcement in a couple of weeks following The Families Stone, a sequel to the beloved 2005 holiday film The Family Stone, which has Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Sarah Jessica Parker adn many more returning.