The costars do more than small talk about their upcoming Peacock show.

Size matters: How Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen go big for their new dramedy series The Miniature Wife

The costars do more than small talk about their upcoming Peacock show.

By Sarah Rodman

Sarah Rodman is the Entertainment Editor, covering TV and music for EW.

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March 31, 2026 12:02 p.m. ET

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Have you ever been in a relationship where someone made you feel small? Let us introduce you to Les and Lindy Littlejohn.**** In the new Peacock dramedy *The Miniature Wife*, Pulitzer prize-winning author, wife, and mom Lindy (Emmy nominee Elizabeth Banks) has a big problem. Or a tiny one, depending on your perspective.

Her husband, genius scientist Les (two-time Emmy winner Matthew Macfadyen), has spent years in the lab dreaming a revolutionary "cellular reduction" technology into reality. The TL;DR of the science? He can shrink stuff. His current demonstration subject for potential investors is an ear of corn.

Les' idealistic vision is to use this breakthrough for the good of humanity. Unfortunately, on his way to solving world hunger he takes a detour with the formula into his own kitchen and — oops! — suddenly he has the titular 6-inch-tall wife.

Lindy's problems only grow from there. Turns out Les hasn't *quite* perfected the process that would reverse the effect just yet. Not without the subject becoming, in a manner of speaking, popcorn. (It explodes. Oops, he did it again.)

With a ticking clock set in motion, *The Miniature Wife* moves between the perspectives of each half of the pair as they navigate, in an increasingly unhinged and adversarial fashion, the new parameters of their life. The present calamity is only exacerbated by the problems that already existed in their frayed union of over 20 years — including narcissistic tendencies for him and accountability issues for her. Hilarity, hijinks, heartbreak, and hope ensue over the course of 10 frothy, fast-moving episodes.

*The Miniature Wife* (premiering on April 9 with all 10 episodes) builds a fantastical world for Lindy to inhabit — including an elaborate dollhouse that replicates Les and Lindy's actual suburban St. Louis McMansion — but keeps its storytelling feet on the ground of a "reality" (albeit heightened) that should feel familiar to many viewers no matter their relationship status. And it offers a look at Banks and Macfadyen enthusiastically sinking their teeth into roles that feel fresh for the acclaimed actors we've come to know and love over the last 25 years in film and television, equally mining their comic and dramatic chops.

"What interested me about it was just the conversation: What is soft power versus hard power," says Banks who, alongside Macfadyen, also signed on as an executive producer. "Because obviously he's physically huge and could squash [shrunken] me like a bug, but I have a lot of soft power in the relationship and influence over him and know how to use it. I really felt the whole thing was an incredible metaphor for the world we're living in today, and this conversation about power and what it looks like, and the masculine versus feminine of that, and how it's all melding together."

Like Lindy herself, the time from the start of the pitch to signing on for Macfadyen was tiny.

"'There's a couple and they're having terrible marital problems and then he accidentally shrinks her and Elizabeth Banks is attached,'" he recalls with a laugh of what was presented to him. "This was a very uncomplicated yes for me."

Les (Matthew Macfadyen) and Lindy (Elizabeth Banks) on 'The Miniature Wife'.

The seed of *The Miniature Wife* came, aptly, from a 2014 short story of the same name written by Manuel Gonzales. When TV producer Jennifer Ames read it, she immediately roped in her pal and writing partner Steve Turner to serve alongside her as executive producers and showrunners. (The pair's partnership began on HBO's Emmy award-winning prohibition drama *Boardwalk Empire** *and continued on shows as disparate as* **Goliath** *and* **Ash vs Evil Dead**.)*

"The idea to me and Steve was 'Who hasn't felt small in a relationship?'" says Ames, speaking for everyone everywhere who has ever been in a relationship, even a great one. "The imbalance of power between the husband and the wife was very interesting to me because I have two husbands. I have Steve, my work husband, and then I have my real husband."

Fellow executive producer Michael Ellenberg, CEO of Media Res (*The Morning Show**, **Pachinko*), was equally fired up when they brought the story to him during the pandemic.

"In a moment where everyone was trapped in their house, the premise really resonated," recalls Ellenberg of Lindy wandering her tiny domestic prison.

Lindy (Elizabeth Banks) on 'The Miniature Wife'.

Since the original short story is told only from Les' point of view, "We had a little bit of room to invent whatever we wanted to make it really come to life," says Turner, including the pair's ability to craft Lindy's entire back story as a novelist who hit it big with her first book — Pulitzer prize, Oscar-nominated film adaptation —  and has struggled to follow it up ever since. (That two writers made their character a frustrated writer is not lost on them.)

The trio then invited Banks and Macfadyen to get small. She was fresh from starring in and executive producing the dark Amazon thriller *The Better Sister* and he was shaking off the gunpowder and mania of playing a presidential assassin in Netflix's period drama *Death by Lightning*, so it's no wonder the cartoony, sci-fi contours of *The Miniature Wife* were appealing.That energy married to deeper themes made it doubly so.

The series also served as a healing corrective for Macfadyen.

"I took my maths [exams] three times and never passed," the *Succession* star says with a laugh of his dismal relationship to STEM subjects in his teen years. "So playing Les was a nice way for me to pretend."

Matthew Macfadyen.

Art Streiber/Peacock

"The ideas began to come together in my brain," says Ames of her initial spitball sessions with Turner. "I thought, 'Oh, is this *The Incredible Shrinking Woman* meets *The War of the Roses*?'" citing the classic 1980s flicks. "I got very excited because I'm obsessed with the tone of those great studio comedies from the '80s and '90s."

*The Miniature Wife*'s dollhouse is definitely situated in a similar neighborhood. Macfadyen tosses *Dirty Rotten Scoundrels** *into the stew of influences.

"There was a type of film that was done really well during that time, dark and funny and not syrupy, but not too heavy. There was a sort of joy in the playing of it, and it felt a little technicolor."

Ellenberg cites the voices of animation legend Chuck Jones and cartoonist and contraption master himself Rube Goldberg among others sneaking into the mix.

"We were inspired by all those things, but the ambition was to do something warm and intimate and smart that's also unhinged and off the wall at the same time," says the executive producer.

Tackling the ideas in a series as opposed to a film meant that the story "could be in a contemporary language and more intimate and frankly, in the way the culture is now, it can be stranger too."

That mix of real and strange also afforded a vast playground for the art departments and production design teams.

"Max really killed it," says Ames of production designer Maxwell Orgell, who helped give the phrase tiny home a whole new, deeply literal meaning.

"We had the house that was the set, then we had the micro dollhouse, which is the dollhouse from Les' side, and then we had the macro dollhouse, which is from Lindy's side. Max had a lookbook that was never ending."

Add in Les' pristine laboratory, the New York office of Lindy's agent Terri (Sian Clifford, *Fleabag*), a diner, various spaces seen in flashbacks… it's a lot of sandboxes.

"We basically put every department through their paces," says Ames. "We would be in meetings and it would be like, 'Thank you so much' and also maybe, 'You're welcome,' because they were so excited to dive into it."

The results are a dazzling mix of VFX and practical props that provide sight gags galore. Banks was excited to get her hands on all of the made-to-scale toys like a giant push pin or the phone charger that she has to wrestle out of an outlet.

"There were so many incredible props," she says, all of which helped make her fictional size feel more tactile. "Every day they came with something that amazed me."

"We ended up having to build 6-foot-long tweezers, and it took two crew guys to squeeze them together and turn the wine bottle," says Turner with a chuckle of a memorable scene. "The ultimate goal was to do as many things as we could to make this feel grounded for Elizabeth, because the bigger the prop, the more she felt like a 6-inch tall woman. I can still remember the day she walked in and saw the 20-foot tall plunger she was going to use like a fire pole and jump off a toilet to save herself. She just cackled, took pictures, and sent them to her kids. It was really funny."

Elizabeth Banks.

Art Streiber/Peacock

"I had so many great photos," confirms Banks. "At one point, I make a canoe out of a Fiji water bottle. We stood the water bottle up and all took pictures of ourselves inside. It was really fun. It's an incredible battle of wits in the series, and you're not really sure if you should root for this couple or not. It's complicated, which I love about it. But it also needs to be engaging on an entertainment level, and I feel like it has a very high entertainment value. A big part of that is the props."

As important as the giant remote control may be, however, the whole enterprise rises or falls on the chemistry between Banks and Macfadyen, who clicked right away.

"I can't imagine a better scene partner than Matthew and I've worked with a lot of people, so I might get in trouble saying that," says Banks with a laugh. "But he was so open and so generous."

"Elizabeth is so quick, so bright and funny," retorts Macfadyen. "It was like stepping onto a moving walkway. You're like, 'Okay, here we go!' I've been very lucky. I've worked with brilliant actors, and it's like that when you work with someone really instinctively talented and brilliant. It was just great fun."

That sense of mutual play made it even harder for both actors when they realized how much time they'd actually be spending apart.

"It felt like we've been working together for a long time," says Macfadyen, "and then the terrible thing was like, *Oh, where's she gone?*"

Indeed, while the absurdity quotient is high, Banks was also able to tap into the melancholy of Lindy's disconnection honestly, given how much of the series she had to shoot alone. The actors often shot separately, Macfadyen with his lab pals and Banks on the dollhouse set looking at a pair of eyeballs 40 feet in the air to give her an eyeline to work with. (Macfadyen worked with an actual doll.)

"My husband likes to say that this was the least mentally prepared I've ever been for a job," says Banks of standing alone in front of a green screen having to mentally conjure the entire world around her — and its inherent dangers, from a cat to a person walking in to how overwhelming the sound is. "I spent a lot of time alone in a mug having a conversation with a camera that is 150 feet away from me to give the right perspective. The level of imagination and vulnerability that that required, it was a lot to carry. I have not felt that vulnerable in a really long time. It was incredibly challenging."

Elizabeth Banks.

Art Streiber/Peacock

"As challenging as it was," says Ames, "She was so fun on set and we laughed so hard tackling it."

"Matthew and I spent enough time together and got into each other's rhythms enough that I just could always imagine him doing whatever he was doing in a scene," says Banks. "And we always read the script out loud with each other before we started shooting any sequence."

It was also helpful that, "The person who shot second got to watch the reference of the person who shot first," she says.

Occasionally, the scene partners would surprise each other, which proved an intriguing challenge. For example, when Les unleashes the couple's cat Magoo on Lindy, Banks expected a certain level of playfulness.

"I remember he shot first and watching it back it was so much darker than I thought it was going to be. I thought, 'Oh man, he is throwing down the gauntlet. This has to be dead serious now. Okay, got it.'"

And Lindy dishes it out too, setting some elaborate *Home Alone*-style traps for Les. But can a show with characters threatening one another keep the audience on its side?

"I felt okay, in that I think I have built up a long reputation of being pretty likable, inherently," says Banks of a career that encompasses everything from franchises like *The Hunger Games* and *Pitch Perfect** *to TV gigs on *30 Rock* and hosting the game show *Press Your Luck*. "I hoped that there was sort of an inner lightness that would still seep through, so you wouldn't hate these people. And I think Matthew has the same thing. He's just such an inherently good human that as dark as he's going, at the end of the day, I felt like you knew they could pull up, they could save each other. They weren't going to crash."

Threading that needle was key, says Macfadyen — who's no stranger to portraying high stakes marital brinksmanship onscreen, thanks to *Succession*, but also adept at playing the romantic lead. (Mr. Darcy, anyone?)

Matthew Macfadyen.

Art Streiber/Peacock

"They're not sympathetic people, necessarily, from the get-go, so that was good fun to navigate," he says. "And also, more broadly, doing something with such a conceit like 'she's small' is clearly absurd. But because you've got this structure of ridiculousness, you can be quite deathly serious about the whole thing, which was really attractive."

He also did a little method acting when it came to his accent.

"I always feel a little bit like the accent police are going to come and say, 'Come on, you're coming with us,'" the Norfolk-born Brit says of his various dialects over the years. "I watched a lot of *Bill Nye the Science Guy*. I wasn't trying to copy his accent, but he has a lovely turn of phrase and a lovely inflection now and again."

Les (Matthew Macfadyen) on 'The Miniature Wife'.

Beyond the Littlejohns are a coterie of misfits who toggle between being part of the problem and the solution — both scientifically and emotionally.

On the home front, we have Les and Lindy's precocious daughter Lulu (striking up-and-comer Sofia Rosinsky).

"She's such a find," says Banks of Rosinsky. "I really loved her. She found something in the portrayal where I felt like, 'Oh man, she's definitely our child.'"

"The material was so high-concept and energetic, like a screwball comedy from the '30s," says Rosinsky, noting, in that spirit, she prepared by watching *Arsenic and Old Lace* with her grandfather. "She shines a spotlight on the problems in her family's dynamic," she explains. "Lulu reflects both her parent's flaws and their strengths."

In the professional realm, O-T Fagbenle portrays literature-loving egghead Richard, Les' lab partner who unwittingly wreaks havoc for Lindy at a time when she can scarcely afford damage to her reputation, regardless of size.

"He nailed this character right off the bat, and we just knew that he would be a great fun foil for Lindy and Elizabeth," says Turner of the character who is an unabashed romantic who never met a flourish he could resist.

Les (Matthew Macfadyen), RPW (O-T Fagbenle), and Janet (Rong Fu) on 'The Miniature Wife'.

"When I first got the script I thought, 'This man is ridiculous. I would love to play him,'" says the British actor, who has also done time in the drama trenches with *The Handmaid's Tale* and *Presumed Innocent**, *but is no stranger to absurdity thanks to *Maxxx*, his sidesplitting look at a former boy bander. "It's really fun to play people who have such a strong perspective on life and are 10 toes down on their beliefs, because obviously life is going to teach you about yourself — and it certainly does teach Richard."

Comic Ronny Chieng brings high energy laughs and a hint of menace to the role of Hilton, an abrasive, tech bro billionaire interested in Les' invention.

"We were lucky to get him," says Turner of *The Daily Show* host and* **Crazy Rich Asians* star. "He's so funny, but then he also brings this sort of you're-not-quite-sure-what-you're-going-to-get-quality and I loved that."

Serving as a right hand to Hilton and tasked with babysitting Les in the lab is no-nonsense scientist Vivienne, played by Zoe Lister-Jones (*Life in Pieces*).

"She immediately becomes Les' nemesis," Lister-Jones says. "But over time, she and Les become co-conspirators in his operations and have chemistry that is undeniable."

Lister-Jones and Macfadyen also hit on the right mix of elements.

"I was such a fan of Matthew's for such a long time, so I was beyond excited to work with him," she says. "He is an unbelievable scene partner, just electric, open, generous. He's the kind of actor whose specificity and range is wildly inspiring. We had a blast."

As did everyone in the green room at the lab, where the cast play-acted the pageantry of the shrinking and embiggening experiments.

"It was a bit like a rep company, which was a lot of fun," says Macfadyen. "It was all very heightened, all the stuff with the shrinking of the corn. But trying to make the stakes very high makes sense because they do get increasingly higher as he thinks, 'If I can't fix this reversing process, she'll be small forever, and that'll be bad.'"

"It was a bit of a flashback to my theater days when actors would sit around in a room and chop it up and play games," agrees Fagbenle. (Speaking of the legit stage, the flashbacks and green room hangs also served as an impromptu meeting of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts alumni club, as Macfadyen, Fagbenle, and Clifford are all RADA grads.)

Viewers may find their allegiances shifting as the series progresses and one half of the couple bares their teeth while the other is showing their soft white underbelly. Les and Lindy can push each other's buttons and wind each other with barbs that only the closest couples have the power to sling. But they can also talk each other off ledges, serve as their partner's best cheerleader, and be tender in a way that they know their spouse will respond to.

"The best arguments on TV are when both people are sort of right," says Ames. "That's the fun of this show. You sort of root for her, and then for him, and then back and forth — and then you don't know who to root for. It's like you're rooting for everybody. The thing that we always come back to when it comes to Les and Lindy is that foundationally their relationship is built on true love. It's genuine."

Polled about what might be some actual advantages to being tiny, only Macfadyen argues that there would be few.

"I think I'd rather be made bigger," he says.

Banks extols the virtues of eavesdropping.

"You always have the element of surprise," Ellenberg points out.

Rosinsky says pragmatically, 'If I were miniaturized, I could fish out the three pencils that are stuck in my family's piano."

Fagbenle takes a decidedly Les-like philosophical approach to the question: "I guess one could define a lot of conflict in the world as infinite wants, chasing finite resources. And if you can shrink people, you increase the amount of goods that are available. So maybe that math might bring more peace."

Perhaps *The Miniature Wife* can also bring an itty bitty bit of peace to world weary viewers.

"I hope people can escape to this fantastical world that is so funny, but also find themselves in a story that is, at its core, so deeply relatable," says Jones. "While Les and Lindy's relationship enters the sci-fi realm, it's really the story of a couple who has drifted apart and is trying so hard to find their way back to each other."

"One of the things I love about the show is that I don't know what else is like this on TV," says Fagbenle. "It's this partly absurd dramedy which has the heart for days. I think people are going to come for the comedy and stay for the heart. And watching Matthew and Elizabeth go at it is just money on the screen."

Returning to the idea of relationships and power, Banks points out that among Les and Lindy's underlying problems are talking past each other and taking each other for granted. And, ironically, this situation forces them to listen to each other and work together. She hopes people think about "How to reinvest yourself in the people that matter the most to you. That's something I know in my life as I get older is really important to me. We have a finite amount of time together with the people that matter to us. We should be making the most of that."

A little advice that could have a big impact.

*Directed by Alison Wild + Kristen Harding*

***Motion**** - DP: Kayla Hoff; 1st AC: Jacob Laureanti; Crane Op: Garrett Dorin; Crane Head Tech: Adam Hull; Gaffer: Bailey Clark; Best Electric: Noah Shettel; SLT: Mauricio Aguilar; Key Grip: David Gonzalez; Best Grip: Derick Holub; Grip: Daniel Kusenda*

***Prop Styling ****- Prop Styling: Rachel Rockstroh/Wanted PD; Assistant: Daniel Phillips *

***Elizabeth Banks ****- Styling: Katie Bofshever/A-Frame Agency; Styling Assistant: Ella Harrington; Hair: Eduardo Méndez/A-Frame Agency; Makeup: Fiona Stiles/A-Frame Agency*

***LONDON UNIT***

***Motion**** - Videographer: Selasi Ayettey; Video Assistant: Sheridan Griffiths*

***Production - ****Executive Producer: Susannah Phillips; Producer: Nathan Kerry Davé; PA: Ella Souzan*

***Matthew Macfadyen ****- Styling: Julian Ganio; Grooming: Carlos Ferraz/Carol Hayes Management*

***Post-Production - ****Color Correction: Nate Seymour/TRAFIK; VFX: Wyatt Winborne/Khimaira Studio; Design: Alex Sandoval; Sound Design: Kristen Harding*

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Dramedy”