Fans of insanely popular Twitch and YouTube gamer and savvy businesswoman Valkyrae are rejoicing at the news that she has a role in The Family Plan, an upcoming action comedy from Apple Original Films and Skydance that co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan. This is the first big-screen acting role for the 31-year-old entrepreneur, who’s best known for her love of video games — both selling them (she worked at GameStop for a few years) and playing them in front of a virtual audience of millions. Today, she’s co-owner of 100 Thieves, an esports and apparel brand geared toward gamers.
Valkyrae, whose real name is Rachel Hofstetter, excitedly announced that she’d just finished filming the movie by tweeting a smiling photo of herself with a casual-looking Wahlburg, complete with three exclamation points.
Also in the picture is iiTzTimmy (IRL name: Timothy An), another famed esports competitor (and 100 Thieves creator) who appears in the movie. He tweeted out his version of the photo shoot with fewer punctuation marks but just as much enthusiasm:
The Family Plan, directed by Simon Cellan Jones, is the first big-screen role for both iiTzTimmy and Valkyrae. As yet, we still don’t know any details about either of their characters, but this hasn’t fazed fans, who are just as excited about the film as the young actors. They were also pretty surprised. Reactions ranged from “Yoooo, this is insane Rae!!” to “holy smokes!” to simply “WOWEEEEEEEEEEE” coupled with four smiley faces.
Even the company that’s co-owned by one and employs the other seemed taken aback by the news:
A release date for the movie has yet to be announced, but it’s pretty safe to say you can expect to see The Family Plan in theaters (and likely on Apple TV) sometime in 2023.
