‘The Eyes Are the Best Part’: Greta Lee Sets Directorial Debut With Serial Killer Thriller Adaptation!

Greta Lee, the star of Past Lives, is going behind the camera for her next project. She’s set to direct an adaptation of Monika Kim‘s bestselling horror novel The Eyes Are the Best Part. The acclaimed novel tells the tale of a Korean-American college student’s descent into madness as she becomes a cannibalistic serial killer.

Deadline reports that Lee will also write the script for the adaptation of Kim’s 2024 novel, making it her directorial and screenwriting debut. The book centers around Ji-won, a young Korean-American woman whose family has splintered in the wake of her father’s infidelity. Her sister is lost and confused. Her mother has an obnoxious new white boyfriend, George, who’s making everyone’s lives miserable. And Ji-won is dealing with not only her own tumbling grades, but a growing, all-consuming obsession with eating human eyeballs. Conveniently, it just so happens that George is sporting a delectable pair of baby blues…

Who Is Greta Lee?

An accomplished stage actor, Lee made her screen debut in a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She made notable appearances on the series Girls and Russian Doll, and the films Sisters and Money Monster, but got her big break with an acclaimed performance in Celine Song‘s romantic drama Past Lives, netting her Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and Independent Spirit award nominations; however, she was not nominated for an Oscar, much to the dismay of many critics. Recently, she guest-starred as herself in “The Oner,” an episode of The Studio in which Seth Rogen‘s bumbling studio head bedevils a Sarah Polley film shoot starring Lee. This year, she’ll appear in the Disney science fiction sequel Tron: Ares and the Kathryn Bigelow political thriller A House of Dynamite. Coming up, she’s also set to star with Willem Dafoe in the drama Late Fame, and will headline the sci-fi horror 11817, which will be directed by Now You See Me‘s Louis Leterrier. This fall, she will also reprise the role of TV executive Stella Bak on the fourth season of Apple TV+‘s The Morning Show.

The Eyes Are the Best Part will be produced by filmmaker Lulu Wang (The Farewell, Expats) for Local Time, as well as Matt Jackson and Joanna Lee for Jackson Pictures, and Dani Melia. Author Monika Kim will executive produce. It is a production of Searchlight Pictures.