The new casting announcement fills a major gap left when Netflix first unveiled the adaptation in 2024. Taylor-Joy remains the lead as Grace, while Owen has been confirmed as Simon, the wealthy father whose rejection sits at the beginning of her murderous campaign.
Orlando Norman and David Shields are joining the cast as well. Their roles have not been disclosed.
The victim list begins with a family history
Grace is the product of an affair Simon claims not to remember. He leaves her and her mother outside the Artemis fortune, and that rejection becomes much harder to dismiss after Grace's mother dies.
Her response is not subtle. Grace begins killing members of her estranged family through increasingly elaborate methods while moving closer to the inheritance she believes should have been hers.
That setup places Taylor-Joy in a very different kind of Netflix lead role from Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit. How to Kill Your Family begins with a protagonist who is already willing to be the most dangerous person in the room.
Sid Gentle knows something about dangerous women
The eight-episode series is produced by Sid Gentle Films and Taylor-Joy's LadyKiller Productions. Sid Gentle's involvement immediately brings Killing Eve into the conversation, although How to Kill Your Family comes from Bella Mackie's 2021 novel rather than the Villanelle universe.
Emma Moran, creator of Extraordinary, is adapting the book and serves as creator and lead writer. Her stated challenge is preserving the novel's collision of camp humor and brutal violence rather than sanding Grace down into a conventional sympathetic protagonist.
Josephine Bornebusch and Tom Kingsley will direct the series. Mackie is a co-executive producer, while Taylor-Joy is also executive producing through LadyKiller.
A two-year-old Netflix announcement is finally heading toward cameras
Netflix first announced Taylor-Joy and the adaptation at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August 2024. The project has spent a considerable stretch in development since then.
The August 26, 2026 update changes that status. Netflix says production will begin this fall, alongside the confirmation of Owen, Norman and Shields.
No premiere date has been announced.
