Helena Bonham Carter, Caitríona Balfe, Emma Laird, and Anthony Hopkins have signed on to star in The Housekeeper. 

Richard Eyre (The Children Act) will direct the film from a screenplay by Rose Tremain, based on her own short story and forthcoming novel. Shooting will begin on 9 February.

Producers on the film are Julia Taylor-Stanley for Artemis Films, Kevin Loader for Embankment, and Herbert L. Kloiber for Night Train Media. Night Train Media has boarded the project as producer and principal financier. Embankment Films is handling sales. Additional finance was provided by Head Gear Films, M2 Mediapost, FireFrame Studios, and Screen Cornwall. Executive producers are Phil Hunt and Compton Ross for Head Gear Films, and James Copp for Night  Train Media.

The film’s synopsis reads: Set against the wild, brooding landscape of Cornwall, Danni (Balfe) is the housekeeper at Manderville Hall, a grand historic house owned by the wealthy and widowed Lord Grenville-Whithers (Hopkins). When the young writer Daphne du Maurier (Laird) arrives, Danni is drawn into a clandestine and intoxicating affair. For one, it is an all-consuming love; for the other, an awakening of long-suppressed desires. Their fragile secret threatens to unravel under the watchful gaze of Adelaide (Bonham Carter), Lord Grenville-Whithers’ calculating niece.

 “Rose Tremain has written a brilliant screenplay which is dark and surprising and mysterious, and we look forward to making a film which lives up to its promise,” Eyre said in a statement. 

Julia Taylor-Stanley added: “Assembling a cast of such calibre speaks to the power of Rose’s storytelling, and to Richard’s standing amongst the great British directors. We are excited to be working with our talent on bringing this compelling story to the screen.”