James Norton and Hugh Bonneville cast in ‘Dog Person’ directed by ‘Sex Education’ star Tanya Reynolds

EXCLUSIVE: Sex Education actor Tanya Reynolds is to direct her feature debut, the black comedy Dog Person, in which she will also star alongside Hugh Bonneville and James Norton.

It is being produced by Vaughan Sivell, Tom Wood and Franki Goodwin of the UK’s Western Edge Pictures, with development support from the BFI. The company has worked regularly with actor-directors, producing Alice Lowe’s Timestalker, in which Reynolds also starred, and Billie Piper’s Rare Beasts.

The film is aiming to shoot in London and Wales in March 2026. 

Dog Person follows a 33-year-old dental receptionist whose life feels trapped between expectation and exhaustion. When she cracks a tooth and meets her new dentist, something unexpected stirs — a desire to hand over all control. She finds herself drawn into an unsettling fantasy, in search of an escape from a society obsessed with perfection. 

“I wanted to make a film about the desire to stop being a person, even if just for a little bit,” said Reynolds, who is also an executive producer on the film. “This is a film about a woman discovering a fetish in her mid-thirties, and how she navigates this while trying to conceive a child with her rapidly dwindling supply of eggs. I think a lot of people will see themselves in Sally, even as she eats cod off of her dentist’s living room floor.”

“It’s so exciting to discover a new voice,” added Sivell. “I read it on a plane, and within a few pages, I knew we had to make this film. A few pages later, I was laughing out loud… Dog Person captures something honest about the pain, pressure and pleasure of being human – it’s strange, beautiful and completely Tanya.”

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