Margaret Qualley had a pretty great 2019. The Leftovers star first appeared in the Emmy-winning FX limited series Fosse/Verdon in the role of Ann Reinking. Then she would have what is arguably her breakout Hollywood role with, fittingly, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Now the actress is dipping her equally famous toes back in the TV pool with a lead role in the upcoming Netflix dramedy series Maid.
After a banner year in 2019, Qualley is cleaning up with new lead roles, landing her own Netflix series, Maid. Variety reports that Qualley has been cast as the lead of the series based on Stephanie Land‘s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. Per Variety, the dramedy series “will chronicle a single mother who turns to housekeeping to—barely—make ends meet as she battles against poverty, homelessness, and bureaucracy.”
Published in 2019, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive is a memoir of Land’s life working as a maid while struggling with poverty. Here is the synopsis for the book (via GoodReads):
While the gap between upper middle-class Americans and the working poor widens, grueling low-wage domestic and service work–primarily done by women–fuels the economic success of the wealthy. Stephanie Land worked for years as a maid, pulling long hours while struggling as a single mom to keep a roof over her daughter’s head. In Maid, she reveals the dark truth of what it takes to survive and thrive in today’s inequitable society.
While she worked hard to scratch her way out of poverty as a single parent, scrubbing the toilets of the wealthy, navigating domestic labor jobs, higher education, assisted housing, and a tangled web of government assistance, Stephanie wrote. She wrote the true stories that weren’t being told. The stories of overworked and underpaid Americans.
Qualley is a legacy Hollywood starlet, the daughter of Andie MacDowell and former model, Paul Qualley. Her life is far removed from the story of Maid, but the rising star has impressed in recent roles, first with the critically acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers, then with her supporting appearances in major films like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Seberg, Native Son, and The Nice Guys. She’s worked with Netflix before in one of the lead roles in Death Note, but we don’t talk about that movie.
Molly Smith Metzler will serve as the writer, executive producer, and showrunner on Maid, with John Wells (Shameless) and Erin Jontow executive producing under the John Wells Productions banner. Margot Robbie, who co-starred with Qualley in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, will executive produce via her LuckyChap Entertainment along with LuckyChap’s Tom Ackerley and Brett Hedblom. Land will also serve as executive producer. Warner Bros. Television, under which Wells has an overall deal, will serve as the studio.
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