Her DNA Discovery Became a Movie. The Real Story Is Even Bigger.

What happens when a life-altering DNA discovery becomes a feature film… and then gets unpacked in a room full of people who truly understand it?

In this special live episode of Family Twist, Corey sits down with filmmaker, actor, and storyteller Lisa Brenner at Untangling Our Roots.

Lisa shares the real story behind her film One Big Happy Family, inspired by discovering at age 40 that the father who raised her was not her biological father. But this conversation goes beyond the screen.

Together, they dive into:

•  The difference between real life and what made it into the film 
•  The emotional impact of late discovery and identity shifts 
•  Family dynamics, secrecy, and the question so many people ask, who am I now? 
•  Nature vs nurture, and what we carry from both 

Then the conversation opens up to the audience, and this is where things get powerful.

Members of the adoption, NPE, and donor-conceived communities share their own questions, reflections, and lived experiences, turning this episode into something bigger than an interview. It becomes a shared moment of recognition, honesty, and connection.

Because when you’re in a room like this, you realize something important. Your story may be unique, but you are not alone. 

If you’ve experienced a DNA surprise, questioned your identity, or are navigating new family relationships, this episode will hit home.

Transcript

Corey 0:00

Hey everyone, it's Cory. Today's episode is a little different, and honestly, a little bit special. We recorded this live at the Untending Arbreed Summit, which, if you've never experienced it, it is one of those rare spaces where nobody has to explain their story because everyone already gets it. In this conversation, I had a chance to sit down with filmmaker and storyteller Lisa Brenner, whose film One Big Happy Family is inspired by her own DNA discovery at age 40. And then we open it up to the room, which turned into something even bigger. What you're about to hear is part interview, part community, and part what happens when people who've lived this actually get to talk about it out loud. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_09 0:40

Corey is the co-host of the Family Twist podcast with his partner adoptee, Kendall Austin Stoltz. Corey is a career journalist, the author of books Laughlines and The Union of the State, and is also a board member of Right to Know. He and Kendall are the proud parents of 10 fur babies. Yes, welcome, Corey.

Corey 1:00

So thank you, Debbie, for that very kind introduction and for casually exposing our home life. Yes. Kendall and I have six dogs and four cats. And at this point, it's less of a household, more unregulated sanctuary. But in a community where we talk a lot about identity, belonging, and family for babies matter too. Adoptive pet parents who are important. Two years ago, I walked into the summit in Denver as a supporting spouse. And I'll be honest, I felt a little like I was crashing a very meaningful, very personal party. Like, hey, I brought snacks. I just didn't get the language quite yet. But within five minutes, that feeling totally disappeared. Because what you create here is rare and real. This year I don't feel like an outsider at all. I feel fully in it, and that's because of all of you. The openness, the honesty, the willingness to tell the truth, even when it's complicated, messy, or painful. What struck me most is this every single person here has a unique story. And somehow at the exact same time, there are these threads that connect all of them. You hear pieces of your story in someone else's and you recognize something. You feel seen, and that matters. The only thing that's been hard this weekend is that I haven't been able to meet everyone. I haven't been able to shake every hand or give every hug. Although, based on this crowd, some of those hugs would be lingering and legally binding. But every single one of you is invited to share your story on Family Twist. There are postcards out in the lobby area. And just email us and I'll get back to you really, really quickly. Our goal isn't just to tell stories in this room, it's to get them out in the world, to reach people who don't understand this experience yet, to build empathy, to create advocates for truth, transparency, and for change. That's how this grows. Before I bring up our special guests, I do want to thank everyone who supported my fundraising over the weekend. The lap dances I provided raised$37 for scholarship. It is my absolute honor to introduce someone whose story captures so much of what we talk about here: identity, truth, family, and finding your way through it with honesty and somehow humor. Lisa Brenner is a writer, actor, and producer whose film, One Big Happy Family, is deeply personal, inspired by her own DNA discovery, age 40. What I love about Lisa's work is that she doesn't just tell the story, she reframes it. She finds the humanity in it, the complexity, and yes, even the laughs. Welcome to the stage. So, Lisa, thank you again for sharing your story. It's a beautiful piece of film. How you got the laughs out of this is amazing. So I'm curious what is different between what we saw in the movie and your real story.

SPEAKER_10 3:56

Oh my gosh. Well, you know, at the beginning it says it's based on a somewhat true story. And I did that because when I was writing it and when it was coming out, there were still a lot of people in my extended family who didn't know. And so I wanted to tell this story, yet I wanted to protect the innocent, and I wanted to protect my mom. And it was so complicated, but it is my true story at the crux. I definitely added a lot of dramatic elements. Like my mom did not pass out from the tattoo ink. I felt like that was more symbolic of where my relationship was with her and the arguments and the fights and the hurt and all of that. So yeah, it is my story. I'll tell I want to tell you guys everything. In real life, I have a brother and a sister. My sister embraced it immediately, and she wanted to go on this adventure with me. And my brother did not at all. And to this day, I have to say it's now 12 years since this happened. He still hasn't taken a DNA test. He is curious about it, but he cannot deal with it. And when I told him I was writing a movie about it, he said, I support you and I support the movie, just leave me out of it. So my movie has a sister, and there's no brother. But in the movie, my husband's a doctor, and in real life, my brother's a doctor. So that was my way. And also my brother is the musician.

Corey 5:38

How much do you know about your donor?

SPEAKER_10 5:41

Well, that could be its own separate movie. And I I touched upon it. So it turns out, just in general, what I found from his gosh, and I'm going to use the wrong terminology. He had three marriages with three child birth children of those marriages. So he has nine, he has nine children of his own biological, not donor-conceived. It's so complicated. From those people, one family wants to have nothing to do with me. They said, please don't ever contact me again. Two of the other families, one is the tattoo artist family, and then there's another family in England. From what I learned of them, he wasn't a good guy. And like really, really not a good guy. And he was an alcoholic and he was abusive, and he cheated on his wife multiple times, and he moved to America to kind of leave his family, start a new life. And he went to medical school in Brooklyn. So yeah, so hopefully you'll see it again because I feel like I tried to touch on so much in like little lines here and there. But yeah, my grazing father was an incredible man. And it's like, then who am I? You know, what do I take on? Do I have the genes of the cheater and oh abusive person, or did I take on my dad? And so, and I I struggle with that a lot. You know, what is genetic versus, you know, what is nature versus nurture.

Corey 7:38

At what age did you explain the situation to your children and how do they take it?

SPEAKER_10 7:42

Well, me and my girls, we are just an open book. My little one was a baby at the time. The scene in the car where there are the two children, in real life, that was just me and my mom. And my little one was a baby at the time in her car seat when that all happened. So she grew up with this knowledge of, you know, mom went through this crazy story. My older daughter was about five. And so she was just aware of it. She's by my side. Let's find him, mom. You know, she's just part of it. It wasn't like I need to sit them down and talk. And when I met my half-brother, the Bobby character, he had a son who was about my daughter's age. So they were instantly cousins and they love each other. And she's into theater, he's into theater, and they just it's adorable.

Corey 8:37

What's your relationship like these days with your half siblings?

SPEAKER_10 8:41

So the Bobby character, we're we're pretty close, but it's more of a it's more of a strong friendship. I can't say I feel like he's my brother because we both found this out so late in our life. But he we're very close. He texts me all the time. He's like, I need your advice. This you know, we have a very nice relationship. We share this huge story. It's sad for him because his father is still alive, his raising father is still alive in real life and has dementia. And so he has lived with this truth, but he can't say anything or doesn't want to say anything. And his mother has asked him not to say anything. The tattoo artist, his sister, who Denise, the one she was running off to get her degree in nursing, is one of my close friends. We play words with friends every single day for like about 10 years. And I met her for the first time last year in person. And what was so cool, I mean, besides we had the same curls, she looks like the Puerto Rican version of me. It's so cool. And she has blue eyes. As soon as we met, she had this soft energy to her that, like, that's how I feel about myself in the world, that it's like, oh my god, you're my people instantly, instantly, and there's just just this gentleness about her that we just bonded immediately.

Corey 10:22

How did the incomparable Linda Leaven end up in your life?

SPEAKER_10 10:25

Oh my goodness. Well, so this man who cuts my hair, he he was working on the CBS show that she was on, Be Positive. And he would tell me these stories about her. And I'm writing the movie, and he was said, Oh my god, Linda, she she sings jazz, she's touring the world. She was in Europe, she was 84 at the time. Incredible. And as he's talking about her, now as I'm writing in the movie, now I'm picturing her. I had no connection to her. And she was very professional that if you're gonna make an offer to her, it needs to go to her agent. And it's like, oh no, I have to deal with agents. And so I wrote her a letter, and I told her in the letter that I wrote this movie as a love letter to my mom, and there's no one I want to play my mom more than you. And the next day she she called me and said, I love your script. I want to have a Zoom with you, and that was it. It was instant.

Corey 11:32

What was your rapport like on set?

SPEAKER_10 11:35

Oh my goodness. Well, it was funny because I was told that Linda is a nightmare to work with. I was like terrified by her. But from our first Zoom, we're mother and daughter, like from the second I met her, and I'm like, it's gonna be a real mother-daughter relationship, just like you see in the movie. It's so much love, so much anger, so much like you just don't understand. So there was a it was incredible. It was a mother-daughter relationship in the truest sense of the word. She became a mentor in my life that I didn't know I needed. I always said, like, I want her career. I want to, I would just want to model my life after her. She was very into mental health. She taught me a lot of psychological terms that I had never heard of. She helped me through a lot of stuff when I was going, when I was going through on set, you know, being the producer, the writer, and the actor, I was going through a lot. And she was just such a strong guiding force for me.

Corey 12:45

Is there a funny moment you remember from being on set with Linda? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_10 12:50

Well, okay, so I don't know if I should show this, but I will. It's hilarious. So we shot in Utah with in pretty much all Mormon crew. And I don't know if any of you were Mormon, but you know, you can't drink alcohol. And on day one, she sent her, they gave her an assistant to, you know, watch her. She sent her out to buy tequila. Oh my god, Linda, you can't do that. But yeah, but every every day it was something she was hilarious. And there were so many scenes that I ruined because I laughed too hard. Oh my god, when she when when they opened the door with the detective, and she every time she did it different, she's like, holy shit. Every time I tears laughing, that I'm like, someone needs to revive me. And Linda's like, Lisa, you're a professional. Stop.

SPEAKER_11 13:57

I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_10 13:59

And so there was one take where I wasn't laughing, and that's what we used. But she was hilarious.

Corey 14:06

The relationship feels really real in the movie. Yeah, it was it was great. Talk about the time that your mom met Linda.

SPEAKER_10 14:15

She never did.

Corey 14:16

Oh, I thought she did. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I did. Okay.

SPEAKER_10 14:18

She never did. But that actually reminds me, someone in a QA the other night at a screening asked me how my mom felt about the movie. Which to this day is still a stress to me. And to this day, I will say to my mom, are you sure you're okay with it? Are you sure? Are you sure? I love, I as I think you can tell, I love my mom more than anything in this world. And what we went through together and and what we still go through with this, I felt like I was exposing her story, but she kept saying, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. And so I just had to trust that she was fine with it. But now, knowing that Linda Lavin played her, oh, she tells everyone about the movie. You have to see the movie. Linda Levin's wonderful.

Corey 15:23

Well, I don't want to be rude and hog all the time because I know there are a lot of questions out there. So we're going to open it up to the floor.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Thank you for your movie. I appreciate your sensitivity. Within the industry, our stories become tropes. And something to just as a plot point to make it a little bit more interesting, but we feel kind of slighted by that. But I do want to appreciate that you approached it from a realistic point of view. How do you see the industry changing in that sense? I know that many of us have watched This Is Us. They've been very sensitive to the Adoptee community and actually speaking our language. And again, we're very appreciative of that. But how do you see the industry changing?

SPEAKER_10 16:04

Well, we'll see. My movie is the first narrative feature about this. There's been a lot of documentaries, and but this is the first one. And I did it independently, so it's not like I brought it to studios, and you know. So if it does well, like maybe there'll be more of it. I really think there will be more stories like this because it's exploding. I mean, the the invention of 23andMe and the ancestry test, and then our ages and the time where like all of this fertility stuff was done in secret, and now they're all coming out generations later. I think wherever I go, I've been touring with the movie for over a year to different states, and every single screening, there's at least five or six people that come to me after this happened to me. This happened to me, this happened to my friend. Everyone has a story. It's it's kind of unbelievable. So I think it's definitely going to become more mainstream.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Hi, Lisa. Thanks for making the movie as well. My name is Nancy, and from Healing Hearts. We have a peer-to-peer Zoom group. And I'm just wondering, because we understand the importance of community and community healing. I'm wondering, how does it feel being in a giant room with people who get it?

SPEAKER_10 17:36

I was telling someone before I only flew in last night and I caught the end of Catherine's speech. And I'm like, I wish I would have known about this when I was going through this. Because everything she said is how I felt, but I just kind of thought there was something wrong with me, or there was no guidance at all. I did have a therapist at the time, but she didn't know. She wasn't of this community. It's like, oh, what's the big deal? Your dad's your dad. I mean, I got that so many times. Your father loved you. What are you what's the problem? It was so painful. And even, you know, within my own family, my brother, he was like, My father's my father. What's wrong with you? What are you seeking? What are you looking for? So I wish I would have known about this community. I found out about just even the term NPE from that very controversial article in The New Yorker. Yeah.

unknown 18:38

We know all about that.

SPEAKER_10 18:39

Which by the way, I haven't even read because so many people sent it to me, like, oh my God, your story, your story, your story. And I'm just like, I was so overwhelmed by it. I just, I, I breezed through. I'm like, what the heck's an NPE? Oh my God, that's me. Like that was big, that was the extent of it. And then I went on Facebook and I'm like, what is this NPE thing? So I typed in NPE, and here you are. Like, it was kind of amazing. So that that was my journey into this. And I'm sure there are so many people like me who don't even know about this community. And it's so incredible and supportive. Gosh, some of the Zooms I did with Alicia, Alicia Weiss, I was like blown away. And I'm like, I'm spilling my heart out to complete strangers. But I needed that. It's so validating.

SPEAKER_12 19:37

I was just curious about I had read Danny Shapiro's book, Inheritance, and then the fact that there's so many similarities between your two stories. That was there, did you ever talk to her, or is there any crossover?

SPEAKER_10 19:51

So I was doing a podcast and they said you should just reach out to her. This was when I was my my movie had a theatrical premiere in October. And so I was doing all this publicity. I'm in New York. And so I'm like, screw, I'll just reach out to her. And I reached out to her on Instagram. And I'm like, I don't know if you heard about me, but I definitely heard about you. She instantly wrote me back, and then we met for coffee. And so we met, and we have a nice little friendship, but we were kind of hoping we were related because our stories are so similar. But I think her donor was from like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, someplace, and mine was from Brooklyn, and she knew her donor. I never got to meet mine. What it's true in the movie. Finally, finally, when I found out who he was, he passed away. Which then I hear it's actually like I I would have probably just been very heartbroken if I did meet him, maybe. So anyway, but yes, yeah, we met.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Thank you for your movie. It brought tears to my eyes. And I'm an NPE, and my mom's from the Philippines, the most Catholic country on the planet. And my 23andMe revealed that I'm half Ashkenazi Jew. And I love, I was delighted that you chose a Filipino spouse in the movie. And I personally have been looking for eight years for a genetic Filipino Jew.

SPEAKER_10 21:29

And I wonder if the husband actually is. In real life, my husband is half Jewish and half Filipino.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

I really want to talk to another Filipino Jew. And some of, I mean, honestly, I know there's one synagamuga and manila, but the members of a farm are converts. And so I'm the product of a one night stand, and I'd love to talk to her husband.

SPEAKER_11 22:00

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I'm just curious how how audiences that don't come from this community seem to be reacting to your movie.

SPEAKER_10 22:17

Well, the gosh, because there's such strong Jewish themes, the movie has been embraced by the Jewish community the most. So we premiered at the Miami Jewish Film Festival last January. And there I met this festival agent, and he specializes primarily in Jewish film festivals. So that's really where I've been like all year from this festival to that festival. But there have been a lot of just like regular, like Phoenix film festival. I think humor is universal. I think love is universal. That's what I was really going for. I was going for a really classic, old-fashioned type comedy that everyone can relate to. I'm finding no matter what the community is, I mean, I had someone, a gay man, say, thank you for representing my community and the subject of found family, because I had to find my own family when I was kicked out of the house when I was 18. It's just, you know, so that's what I was really going for. When I was originally writing the movie, it was a melodrama. It was like the worst possible lifetime movie you can watch because I was really just expressing the pain, the hurt, the anger, the shame, all the things that I went through. I wrote it during the pandemic. I was sitting on my couch by myself with my dog by my side. I realized there's so much pain and sadness in this world. I don't want to add to that. I want to uplift. And how do I really feel about the story? How I really feel is I love my mother. Despite how I was brought in this world or not told, I mean, there's so many ways of looking at it. She actually she actively seeked me out to, you know, to conceive me. She didn't tell me about that part, but it was with such a desire to be a mom, and she was an incredible mother. So it's so complicated. I don't. I decided to make it a comedy because that's kind of how I see the world. And when like kind of tragic things happen, it's easier to look at it with a kind of human, uh humorous lens. So anyway, I'm hoping that anyone of any community. Oh, that's another thing I was gonna say. So it became more of a unification movie for me, instead of being so divided like our country has become. I wanted to unify in this. And I'm gonna hate this group, and I'm gonna hate this group. But then when you go to all of these cities, you're like, oh my God, we're all the same. We just want family, we just want love. Really.

SPEAKER_06 25:34

So speaking of your mom and humor, the scene where it's your representation of your bat Ms. Fa, and she gets up and she was any of that.

SPEAKER_10 25:47

What is true is I did have this fear of public speaking, and definitely not as bad as the character, but I definitely had it. So that's where that came from. But yeah, that was all made up. But my mom, it's so funny. So my mom's, I think she's 85 now. She read the script and she was like, Did I do that? Like, no, you didn't. I can't remember anymore.

SPEAKER_07 26:17

She could have, but she didn't. Hi, Lisa. Thank you so much for this wonderful movie. I am not an MPE, but I was raised modern Orthodox Jew. And let me tell you that, Bah, that's well. I just wanted to say, I think what it really did here, it gives specially MPEs and even late discoveries, and all of us, all of us, hope.

SPEAKER_10 26:45

I did a screening in Saratoga, New York, and it was at a synagogue, actually. And I was sitting next to the rabbi, and I'm like, I hope he's okay with the Yoni song at the end, which he seemed to enjoy it. But this woman came to the movie thinking it was just a Jewish comedy, and she was in tears after, and she said to me, I just found out that my father's not my father. And she was devastated. And she said, But you seem to be okay with it. Do you think I'm gonna be okay? And I said, just just so you know, what you're seeing happened 12 years ago. I'm 12 years into this, I went through a lot, but there's therapy, there's online groups, there's so much support out there for you. And I think I'm I'm sure I pointed her her towards all of you, but thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Thank you so much for the representation in the media. It means everything. I've been at this a long time. I I took a paternity test with my dad 28 years ago, and there was nothing like all of this, and there was nothing like what you presented. So thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_10 28:33

I'm like, oh, I have a second cousin twice removed. I have it like every day. It's like more and more, and so confusing and so complicated that. And then I heard, you know, the 23andMe that they were selling the data. I don't even know. They went bankrupt. So I actually deleted 23andMe a few years ago. I'm still on Ancestry, and I am, I guess, but I'm not really actively seeking it anymore. I'm just I'm kind of it was just it became overwhelming, the amount of cousins, and like I don't know who's related to who and how much. So yeah, I don't really track it anymore.

unknown 29:15

The siblings?

SPEAKER_10 29:17

I don't know. I don't really I don't track it because it it was just getting very complicated between like the the biological siblings and then their children, and now I'm getting like it was so complicated. And of course, the the the the websites, they don't get the relationships correct a lot of times. So and she's not a niece, she's my first cousin. It said she was uh just a different relation, but I actually she's someone I grew up with as my cousin. I don't know, but it just got the so I'm just like I'm over it. They get it wrong a lot.

SPEAKER_08 29:58

Hi Lisa, right here. I'm I'm Lily Wood. Nice to meet you in person. I think we've messaged and thank you for referencing that article. That was a the controversial article. I was in that that was a tough time. Um now I have to read it. I'm gonna mash. Oh, oh, no, you don't. So okay. See the change in so after you found out that you're only half Ashkenazi Jew, I was wondering if you received any comments from people in your faith, or if oh, sounds like not, or or if people were supportive of that, or if you struggled with that that change.

SPEAKER_10 30:39

I think in the movie it was more of a it was more of a plot point of identity, but I've always I think it what was the most hurtful and jarring to me was the father aspect of it and not feeling like I'm not him because I so identified with him and was so connected with him. And maybe I was more enmeshed with him just because I just thought the world of him. Yeah, the the Jewish thing, it just validated for me why my whole life, people would just come up to me and say, you don't look Jewish. And and and what's really sad about that is there are a lot of blonde, blue-eyed Jewish people, but what's represented in the media is so stereotypical that if you're gonna be a Jewish character, you have to have dark hair and dark eyes. And even, it's always made me so mad, even like some major television shows about a Jewish woman. I'm not gonna mention names, but the lead actress is not Jewish. And it's just it's made me angry my whole life because my whole life I couldn't play a Jewish character, and I would say, but I'm actually Jewish. Yeah, but no, no, we're gonna go with the Italian girl to play Jewish. So that just felt like perpetuating stereotypes. So, yeah, so the fact that me and Linda have light hair, my sister character, she has blonde hair, that was all very intentional to represent like Jewish people look like everyone else.

SPEAKER_13 32:21

Hi, I'm Melissa over here, and I am a supporting partner to my husband. I too hope to not be a grandmother, but to be a Lola. So I really, really appreciated that little tidbit. But as a supporting partner, I'm wondering how your husband's perception has evolved on the journey.

SPEAKER_10 32:44

Well, like represented in the movie, my husband was so supportive from the second it happened. My husband's very funny, and he was quoting Saturday Night Live 1970s-ish. As soon as it happened, without skipping a beat, he turns to my mother and he says, Gloria, you slut. Yeah, he's just been so steadfast and supportive of this whole thing. He's so happy that I'm here. He's so happy that I found you guys. Yeah, just anything that makes me feel better, he's makes him happy.

Corey 33:31

All right. Well, Lisa, again, thank you for this beautiful movie. I hope there are more stories. I hope you get inspiration because, as yet, you know, we need more representation out there. So you get another idea, pen to paper.

SPEAKER_10 33:44

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, there could totally be a part two of this. Like my younger daughter said, Well, what if it's my bonnets for this time?

Corey 33:56

That was our live conversation with Lisa Brenner from Untangling Our Roots. If you felt the shift in the room during that QA, that's exactly what this community does. People walk in carrying questions, confusion, sometimes years of silence, and then something clicks when they realize they're not the only one. That's why we do this. To take these stories out of rooms like that and put them into the world. So the next person going through it doesn't feel like they're figuring it out alone. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. If you've got a story of your own, you already know we want to hear it. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time. And remember, Family Secrets are the ultimate plot twist. The Family Twist Podcast is presented by Sabwa Fair Marketing Communications and produced by Mosaic Multimedia.