Sydney Sweeney’s ‘The Housemaid’ Breaks 2025 Box Office Bomb Streak; Feig Praises Actress’ Handling of Sex Scenes

The Housemaid is a dark and twisting thriller, which sees Sweeney playing housemaid Millie, who takes on a job with a wealthy couple, played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, but it is not long before the perfect job begins to dramatically unravel in among a host of secrets, lies, and seduction. The film certainly doesn’t hold back on the kind of flesh-baring sex scenes that Sweeney has never shied away from, and for director Paul Feig, Sweeney and costar Sklenar’s handling of those “uncomfortable” scenes was something he was really appreciative of. He told The Times:

“There’s nobody more uncomfortable with it than [me], but Syd and Brandon are so body positive that they thought it was hilarious that I was so uncomfortable. She’s very proud of how she looks, and you should be. There are so many people I’ve encountered where you’re fighting against their insecurity. She would say, ‘I love women’s bodies,’ and that’s so healthy. [Intimacy coordinators are] the greatest thing that’s happened in Hollywood. When you have a 63-year-old man amongst all these beautiful young people, you don’t want to be the pervy porn producer, telling people to do stuff.”

‘The Housemaid’ Has Given Sydney Sweeney Her First Success of 2025

Sydney Sweeney has been in the news recently for reasons that she will probably be happy to forget and move on from. The actress, who will return to her Euphoria role early in 2026, has not had the best year in terms of box office success, something that dovetailed with controversy over her American Eagle jeans advertisement.

Sweeney’s movie releases of Americana, Eden, and Christy all failed to make a mark in cinemas. While Americana was an indie movie that just seemed to get lost in the churn of other releases, Eden was a bigger affair, with Ron Howard directing and Ana de Armas and Jude Law among the high-profile cast. Once again, the film flopped and failed to make anywhere near its budget. This then led to Christy, the biopic of boxer Christy Martin, which at the time generated some potential Oscar buzz for the actress, but opened with one of the worst debuts of all time.

The Housemaid is now helping Sweeney put her disappointing year to bed – literally and metaphorically – and has certainly connected with audiences better than any of her other movies of the last year. Whether this means Sweeney has fully turned a corner and will now be on the right track again is something that we can only wait to find out.