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‘A Friend of the Family’ Star Jake Lacy on Playing the Rapist Who Kidnapped Jan Broberg Twice


It was a few days after the Emmys and Jake Lacy were, for good reason, still on high. He was nominated for the first time at the ceremony for his role on HBO’s White Lotus, also scored a nod for a whopping eight members. “The nomination was not on my radar,” he told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. Then he gets to meet his friends and co-stars Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge Victory. Also, creator/writer/director Mike White and the series itself take home top honors.

The dark satirical manga, about wealthy people behaving badly while on vacation in Hawaii, dominated the mainstream when it aired in 2021 — so perhaps too many of its Emmy wins not a surprise. But definitely…anything else to live in a world where a TV series features a hotel manager assign an employee a belt job and Lacy’s character getting into a suitcase and stabbing someone is now considered a work of art worthy of an award.

“That’s the new bar now,” Lacy said with a laugh. “High or low, we set it.”

His first thought after reading those scenes was: Would they really let us do that? “It was as if there were rules and someone would come down from above and say, ‘No, this is unacceptable!’” ​​As he and Bartlett hit like White Lotus broadcast, he was surprised to learn that some people believe defecation is real. “People will be like, ‘Is that you? Are you squatting in this? ‘”He’s going to have to make that clear, while he’s squatting over the suitcase, that’s digital analytics in fact. “Like, come on…”

The start of our conversation proves that there is no greater icebreaker than a shot on TV. Admittedly, brevity is needed, given the series’ theme we’re actually meeting on Zoom to discuss: Peacock’s A family friend. “Yes, this conversation is going to be a little different,” he said.

The series, which premiered on TV last week and airs new episodes on Thursday, is based on the disturbing real-life story of Jan Broberg, who was previously the subject of the documentary. Kidnapped in Plain Sight.

There’s a series of horrifying, almost unbelievable plot twists — so much so that as more details emerge, your jaw drops so low it risks crashing through the floorboards.

During the 1970s, Broberg was abducted twice from her family’s Idaho home — first at age 12 and then at age 14 — by their neighbor and close friend, Bob “B” Berchtold. The first time, he takes her to Mexico and convinces her that aliens have kidnapped her. Berchtold used audio recordings of “alien” conversations to brainwash her about having sex with him, with the threat that her family would be harmed if she didn’t. When the Brobergs finally reunited with Jan, the Berchtolds went back to their way of life once more; Jan’s mother, Marianne, and her father, Bob, both had sexual relations with him.

Lacy plays Berchtold, a tough guy from the roles for which he became famous in series and movies like Office, clear child, How to be single, Girls, and High Definition. (At one point, Vulture published a chart titled, “Which Jake Lacy character is the best guy?“) A family friend follow White Lotus in weaponizing that “type” revelation, he perfected. His classic American good looks that were once used to convey homogeneity in cinema, are now being used to convey something more sinister.

In White Lotus, he plays the quintessentially hungry rich white guy; Now, he plays a friendly neighbor that no one expected can be responsible for so much evil.

Lacy had never described a character like this before and was asked to read to series author Nick Antosca and Eliza Hittman, who directed the first two episodes. “I also want me to read it,” he said.

For an actor, there’s undeniably a compelling character study to play alongside Berchtold. However, occupying his mind is also a frightening prospect — from the sheer arrogance he carries to the implications of potentially abusing such a grotesque child.

Lacy also had a similar reaction to the unbelievable twists in the Brobergs case that made many viewers Kidnapped in Plan Sight do. “When Berchtold’s world began to spiral and fall apart, his reaction was to go further, harder and faster in the opposite direction. He was constantly doubling down,” he said. Just when things seemed impossible to get wild, Berchtold married Broberg again and hid her under a different name in a private school in California. While on parole, he took Broberg – a minor – across state lines and still abused her. “The whole time, though, he calls Brobergs like he’s riding a shotgun looking for Jan. That’s brazen on a whole other level.”

Unlike the Brobergs documentary, A family friend use her time to reveal how this whole family fell victim to a predator — especially at a time when people don’t discuss pedophilia and may have never heard of the concept grooming. Those scenes are unsettling as they play out in the series, though under the guidance of Antosca and Hittman, never exploitative or gratuitous. (For example, abuse is never shown.) They are also very charming.

Shooting those scenes involved a bit of emotional dissociation and diversion. “It was easier for me to imagine what it would be like to kill someone than I thought [about] what it’s like to abuse a child,” Lacy said. “Robert Berchtold does not feel the disgust, shame, and guilt that you and I would feel even when we engaged in those thoughts. For him, that was what he wanted most. So for me, trying to trick my mind to get me there is unhealthy and unnecessary, because then I feel disgusted and judge myself. And this person didn’t. “

But beyond reaching out as an actor, he saw a poignant opportunity to say something to the show, especially since Jan Broberg himself served as the show’s producer. “Jan has a real purpose in telling his story this way. If we do it right, it really matters,” Lacy said.

A family friendIn a sense, it was a way for the Brobergs to correct a story that had already been created about them.

After Kidnapped in Plain Sight premiered on Netflix in 2017, the Broberg family was intrigued by the coals. Viewers are disgusted that they let this happen to their daughter twice. How naive must they be? How selfish were they with their own sexual desires to let Berchdolt seduce them to this extent, to severely cloud their judgment? Then there are the least forgiving critics, who are baffled that Jan, even at just 12 years old, would believe she has been abducted by aliens.

Broberg spoke about this criticism – and why it was prompted here to tell her family’s story.

“We knew if people started talking about really important things like this, it would make a difference,” he said. she told Diversity.. So even if they’re talking bad about my parents, they’re talking. Whether they’re talking about, ‘That stupid Jan Broberg, how stupid is she to think she’s been abducted by aliens? ” I don’t care anymore. I want them to talk because, to me, that brings the needle closer to prevention, closer to awareness and closer to what I hope is going forward, it’s hope that you can heal the broken heart”.

In recent years, the value of the true crime genre was brought into question, especially for using the real traumas of victims and survivors for compelling entertainment. Increasingly, those who are actually involved in real crime feel encouraged to expose and criticize these works as gross exploitation.

After the premiere of By Netflix Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story at the end of September, for example, a relative of one of the relatives of a victim of a serial killer tweeted about the family’s displeasure that the string exists. Many people online are on their side; However, that hasn’t stopped millions of people from streaming the show.

That’s why it was essential that Broberg and her mother were so closely involved in the creation Family friend. She was outspoken in interviews and in a keynote at the New York City premiere about the series’ healing mission. Most important, A family friend doesn’t limit its scope to trauma: She wants to show how an entire family — indeed an entire community — can be groomed by one person, and how common grooming is. It’s by someone they know, trust, and love.

“[Jan] is a living example of what she hopes to convey through this series, that, look, this subject and what happened to the whole Broberg family is hard, dark, and horrible, ‘ Lacy said. “But here is the last hope for anyone who has been through anything like this, that this is not your whole story. This can be a percentage of what happened in your life and you can choose what happens next. “

The whole experience was a moving one for Lacy and the entire cast; that was on display a lot when the cast and Brobergs reunited for the series’ emotional premiere. It’s a project that, in addition to being a lucrative acting gig, will leave a deep mark on your life.

“[The Brobergs] Lacy said. “The fact that she can be on set with me and cheer me on is a level of grace and mental health work that I will probably never know.”

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