Three films in, Tatiana Maslany has become the centre of gravity in Osgood Perkins’s evolving horror universe.
Per trades, Maslany has joined the cast of The Young People, Osgood Perkins’s latest for NEON. The announcement confirms what’s been taking shape for months: Maslany is no longer just a repeat collaborator, she’s become integral to the tone and texture of Perkins’s recent work.
With The Monkey, Keeper, and now The Young People, Maslany and Perkins seem to be building a creative partnership that threads through his current cycle of horror.
The Monkey divided critics, but Maslany’s performance as the weary single mother Lois drew near-unanimous praise. She gave the film its only emotional constant, grounding its splattery absurdity in genuine fatigue and fear. Almost every review singled her performance out as truthful, a human centre that kept the story from tipping into parody.
Perkins seems to have taken note. Keeper (due 14 November 2025 via NEON) was written for her, and her casting in The Young People suggests Perkins was happy with the results.
Maslany has also been outspoken about the direction of big-studio entertainment, publicly criticising Disney after recent controversies around the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The fallout may or may not have cost her a comfortable future in the Marvel pipeline.
If she isn’t returning to She-Hulk, that leaves space for work like this – semi-indie horror that can afford to be darker, self-contained, and artistically alive. NEON’s run with Perkins has become a small laboratory for this kind of film: studio-grade craft at independent scale, where smart performances and directorial vision are backed with decent budget.
Production on The Young People is currently underway in Vancouver. Lola Tung and Nico Parker remain the headline leads, joined now by Maslany alongside Brendan Hines, Heather Graham, and Johnny Knoxville. Cinematography is by Galo Olivares, whose gorgeously realised work on Roma and Longlegs suggests another stylish descent into dread.
The film is described as a coming-of-age horror story set in the late 1990s, following two teenage girls whose friendship warps under unseen influence. Perkins’s last few scripts have blurred psychological horror with cosmic unease; this one appears to continue that trajectory.
The Young People is slated for a 2026 release through NEON.
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