Margaret Qualley To Reteam With Ethan Coen On ‘Honey Don’t!’; Aubrey Plaza & Chris Evans Also Set For Focus Features Comedy

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of Focus Features‘ February 23rd release of Drive-Away Dolls, the road-trip caper marking her first collaboration with Academy Award winner Ethan Coen, Margaret Qualley has been set to star in Honey Don’t!, the filmmaker’s latest for the same studio.

Joining Qualley in the cast are Aubrey Plaza (My Old Ass) and Chris Evans (Pain Hustlers). Details as to the film’s plot are currently under wraps, though Deadline understands it’s a comedy in the same vein as Drive-Away Dolls.

Coen is directing from his script written with wife Tricia Cooke, the veteran editor who cut such Coen Brothers classics as The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, also co-writing the upcoming Drive-Away Dolls. Pic’s producers are Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Coen, Cooke, and Robert Graf.

In Ethan Coen’s solo effort Drive-Away Dolls, Qualley portrays Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, whose demure friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.

A two-time Emmy nominee currently among the most in-demand actresses in town, Qualley is known for turns on such prestige series as Maid, Fosse/Verdon and The Leftovers, and has further cemented her star power with standout turns in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Neon’s dominatrix pic Sanctuary, among other big screen titles. Most recently appearing in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Academy Award-nominated fantasy Poor Things, based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, she’ll also be seen in Lanthimos’ upcoming anthology film Kinds of Kindness.

Recently drawing some of the best reviews of her career with her Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated turn in the second season of The White Lotus, Plaza was at Sundance this week in support of Megan Park’s well-reviewed comedy My Old Ass, in which she appears opposite Maddie Ziegler, Maria Dizzia and more. Up next, she’ll be seen in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, Marvel’s Agatha: Darkhold Diaries and Legendary’s live-action/animated hybrid feature Animal Friends, among other projects.

Most recently starring opposite Emily Blunt in David Yates’ Netflix crime drama Pain Hustlers, Evans will next be seen opposite Dwayne Johnson in Amazon MGM Studios’ holiday event film Red One, due for release on November 15.

Coen first began pursuing solo projects in 2022, with the A24 doc Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, as brother Joel went off to helm Apple/A24’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. His last feature, prior to that, was his and Joel’s Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which went on to three Academy Award nominations, after winning the prize for Best Screenplay in its Venice Film Festival premiere.

Qualley is repped by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Plaza by CAA, Mgmt Entertainment and Ira Schreck; and Evans by CAA and attorney Jason Sloane. Coen and Cooke are with UTA.