Netflix Finally Sets Cast for 'Grown Ups' Adaptation

It’s been a year and a half since Netflix initially announced it had snapped up the rights to adapt Grown Ups, the best-selling novel by Irish writer Marian Keyes. Originally part of a blockbuster upcoming slate revealed in March 2024, Grown Ups was initially included in a line-up that produced the recently released Hostage (then under the title The Choice), the upcoming House of Guinness, and the blockbuster smash hit Adolescence. But though Grown Ups took a little more time to mature, it too is finally heading into production for the latter half of 2025.

Keyes is well known in the U.K. for her interconnected Walsh family series, which debuted in 1995 with Watermelon, and now encompasses eight novels total. However, the rights to the Walsh family books are currently owned by the BBC and are being loosely adapted as The Walsh Sisters. Grown Ups, which debuted in 2020, introduced a new clan, the Casey brothers, Johnny, Liam, and Ed, and their three wives: Jessie, married to Johnny; Nell, married to Liam; and Cara, married to Ed. 

(The show initially threatened to change Johnny’s name to Rory to up the Irishness of it all, but as the casting line-up reveals, that’s been thankfully scrapped.)

According to Keyes, her book had barely debuted when she first got the call asking about adapting it. “Countless books are optioned and very few ever make it to the screen. But from that first conversation, I believed,” she said as part of the press release. “Then Netflix came on board and again, it was so easy to like and trust the people involved. For a long time the only people I met related to this production were women.”

Here's the series synopsis:

Set in south county Dublin, Grown Ups follows the chaotic lives of the Casey clan, a noisy, tight-knit Irish family, who are bound together by a tangled web of loyalty, resentment, money, memory, and love. When the rock of the family, the “good son,” dies unexpectedly, it sets off a seismic emotional reckoning. Over the course of the next year, the Caseys will fall in and out of love, confront old wounds and make some new ones. They’ll be forced to face not only their grief, but the exhausting, relentless, and often ridiculous struggle of being an adult. Despite their age and responsibilities, the Caseys are far from grown up.

Grown Ups will star Barry Ward (Passenger) as Johnny Casey and Sarah Greene (Bad Sisters) as his wife, Jessie; Robert Sheehan (The Umbrella Academy) as Liam Casey and Amy-Leigh Hickman (Ackley Bridge) as his wife, Nell; Karin Hanczewski (Tatort) as Ed Casey, and Aisling Bea (Alice & Jack) as his wife, Cara. The rest of the cast includes Adrian Dunbar (Ridley) as Canice, Sinéad Cusack (Napoleon) as Rose, Katelyn Rose Downey (Clean Sweep) as Saoirse, and newcomer James Agnew as Ferdia.

The series was created by Samantha Strauss (The Last Anniversary), who is set to pen all eight episodes. Directors Ciaran Donnelly (The Wheel of Time) and James Griffiths (The Ballad of Wallis Island) will split helming duties with Liz Gill as the series producer. Strauss, Griffiths, and Keyes executive produce alongside Helen Gregory, Andy Noble, Shay Spencer, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman & Liz Watts; plus Manda Levin, Henrietta Lee & Mona Qureshi for Netflix. 

Grown Ups is currently filming in Ireland and is expected to debut on Netflix sometime in 2026.