Anya Taylor-Joy to Star in How to Kill Your Family Adaptation

Netflix has ordered an adaptation of Bella Mackie’s best-selling novel How to Kill Your Family, with Anya Taylor-Joy (Furiosa, Dune: Part Two, The Queen’s Gambit) to star in the lead role.

From Sid Gentle Films (Killing Eve), the series will tell the story of a young woman named Grace, whose billionaire father never claimed her and left her and her mother to fend for themselves. When her mother dies and she is rejected by the people who should love her, she transforms her anger into action and begins killing off her estranged extended family through morbidly creative means.

In addition to starring, Taylor-Joy is executive producing on behalf of her company, Ladykiller Productions. Other executive producers include Sid Gentle Films’ Sally Woodward Gentle, Lizzie Rusbridger and Lee Morris, as well as lead writer Emma Moran (Extraordinary).

“As soon as I turned the last page, I knew I had to be a part of bringing this story to life,” Taylor-Joy said. “After some (light) stalking of the inimitable Bella Mackie, I could not be more thrilled to be collaborating with the team that is Sally, Lizzie and Emma. I am looking forward to getting our hands even dirtier.”

Mackie commented, “It’s been thrilling to watch the characters I wrote take on new life under this magnificent creative team. Anya is the most perfect fit to play Grace. I often think she understands her better than I do. Pairing up with Sid Gentle has been joyful, and introducing me to Emma has made me supremely confident the book is in safe hands.”

“I felt an immediate kinship with Grace,” Moran said. “She’s the kind of complicated, dark, but utterly hilarious anti-hero you dream of writing. Striking that balance between camp fun and brutal violence that Bella hits so perfectly in the book is a challenge I’m so looking forward to. I’ve never had more fun on a project with such a high body count.”

“I couldn’t be more thrilled by our team,” added Woodward Gentle. “Emma Moran is a magical talent with a unique voice and the excitement is already palpable in the writers’ room as Anya, Lizzie and the team explore Bella’s rip-roaring, take-no-prisoners, satirically pitch-black novel. This series can promise more twists and darker crimes as we go deeper into Grace and the characters around her. Anya is a fantastic collaborator and couldn’t be a more perfect actor to inhabit Grace—sophisticated, multi-layered, dangerously funny and desperately intuitive.”

Mona Qureshi, director of scripted series at Netflix, said, “We are delighted to be embarking on such a fun and wild adventure, with our fabulous partners at Sid Gentle and the extraordinary and rare talents that are Anya Taylor-Joy and Emma Moran lighting up the path. Bella Mackie has given us a brilliantly modern anti-hero in Grace, whose darkly humorous quest for revenge will take a scythe through British society as she sets about picking off the family that has wronged her. It is hard to imagine a more dazzling Grace than Anya—and we cannot wait to bring this to our Netflix members.”