Bryce Dallas Howard has joined DreamWorks' adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's bestselling novel The Help, playing the antagonistic role of Hilly Holbrook, the beehive hairdo-wearing busybody who is cruel to the black maids and generally rubs everyone the wrong way, according to Deadline.

Emma Stone and Viola Davis have already been set for leads in a film that is being directed by Tate Taylor, who wrote the screenplay. Stone plays a young journalist who comes home to write a tell-all of what it is like to be an African-American maid in pre-Civil Rights Mississippi.

Production begins in July.