Danielle Solzman
Lisa Brenner opens up about One Big Happy Family, sharing the true story behind the film, Linda Lavin’s legacy, and finding comedy in tragedy.
Brenner discusses the personal journey that inspired her new film One Big Happy Family, revealing how a shocking DNA test shaped the story. She reflects on portraying an amplified version of herself through the character Rachel, her collaboration with the late Linda Lavin, and the importance of authenticity in casting. Brenner also shares challenges faced during production in Utah, narrowly finishing before the SAG-AFTRA strike, and bringing humor to deeply personal material. From wildfires to festival tours, she emphasizes unity, love, and resilience as the heart of the film.
As Rachel Torres (Lisa Brenner) turns 40 years old, she is juggling a midlife crisis and the pressure of giving a speech at her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Her world unravels when a DNA test shows her biological father is not Jewish and that the father who raised her isn’t her biological dad. What follows is a comedic adventure with her spirited mother, Lenore (Linda Lavin), as they set out to uncover the truth of Rachel’s identity.
One Big Happy Family offers a nice break from the usual fare of films about Jewish pain and trauma. While Lisa Brenner’s script deals with trauma in its own way, it still plays up the comedy as it does its best to offer Jewish joy, which we desperately need especially after the news coming out of Manchester over Yom Kippur.
Matt Sohn directs from a script written by Lisa Brenner. Brenner stars alongside Linda Lavin, Josh Fadem, Lumi Pollack, Kat Cunning, Dylan Chance, with Dante Basco.
For more information on where you can watch One Big Happy Family, please visit the official website.
It’s so nice to meet you today. How are you doing?
Lisa Brenner: I’m good. How are you?
I’m hanging in there. What was the genesis behind One Big Happy Family?
Lisa Brenner: Well, it is based on my own true story. Have you gotten a chance to watch the movie?
I finally got around to watching it last night. I was in Toronto for the first half of the month.
Lisa Brenner: Okay. Yeah, so the whole DNA thing is true. When I was 40, I took a DNA test and my life completely shattered. It’s been some time since then. But yeah, so I wrote my story about it. And what started out as a very sad, melodramatic, woe-is-me-type movie, I made it into a comedy to make it more universal and relatable.
Did you ever consider making Marcus a filmmaker?
Lisa Brenner: (Laughs) Hmm. Well, I wonder why you asked that. I was trying—see, at the beginning of the movie, you see, I say based on a somewhat true story because I didn’t want to tell everyone how true the story actually is.
I made Marcus fully Filipino instead of my half-Filipino filmmaker husband. In real life, I have a brother and he’s a doctor, and that’s where that came from, making Marcus a doctor. But I definitely tried to add a lot of fiction to the truth to protect the innocent. (Laughs)
How much of yourself did you incorporate into Rachel aside from the whole DNA freak out?
Lisa Brenner: Well, I would say Rachel is a much more amplified version of me. I think we all suffer from some sort of anxiety. I used to have more performance anxiety when I was younger. So she had very bad anxiety.
Yeah, I wanted to not make her really the hero of the movie. I wanted her to have more of the flaws and do kind of the bad things. Whereas my mom, I wanted to be the real hero of the movie.
And so I think, yeah, this movie really is the mom’s movie. It’s Linda Lavin’s movie. It’s a celebration of her. I’m just kind of the vehicle by which we honor the mother. Kind of divine energy, as we speak about at the ending.
Yeah. Can you talk about working with Linda Lavin in one of her final films?
Lisa Brenner: Yeah, she’s an incredible woman. When I was writing the movie, I wanted it to be her. I wanted to have authentic casting for all the characters. I really wanted my Jewish mother to be played by a Jewish woman. I knew Linda was Jewish. I knew that she’s a singer. I know that she’s a performer.
She travels the world constantly. She has the energy. She’s just full of life. The woman just every single day is traveling, doing something different. I knew she can bring that type of energy to the movie.
I wrote her a letter. I sent it to her agent with a script. She said yes and the rest was history. Every day, she cracked me up and was just the most hilarious, amazing, wonderful woman.
And fortunately, she saw the movie back in October. We had a little cast and crew screening. She loved it. And then two months later, she passed away unexpectedly.
I’m glad she had that chance to watch the film.
Lisa Brenner: Yeah, me too. Yeah.
I love that you mentioned wanting authenticity for the characters because I feel like there’s been this whole entire push for authenticity in recent years, and somehow we tend to be excluded from that conversation.
Lisa Brenner: Yeah. No, I 100% agree with you. I wanted to have a real lesbian playing my lesbian sister. I wanted a real Jewish person to—across the board, I wanted authentic casting.
Now, the only problem is when you’re casting, you’re not allowed to ask any questions about sexual identity, religion. I just kind of had to guess, or if they wanted to give me that information, that’s okay.
So as much as I wanted the authentic casting, it’s very hard to do. But it was definitely something I strive for in this movie. This movie, I really wanted to be authentic as possible across the board.
Yeah. You traveled to the World Premiere in Miami amid the devastating wildfires. Was there ever a time in which you considered not making the trip that week?
Lisa Brenner: Yes, the day before. The day before, my family, we were evacuated from our house. I told them at the festival, I can’t come. I was in a bed in an Airbnb with my whole family, my dogs. It was so terrifying knowing my house might not be there in the morning when we came back.
By the next morning, they lifted the evacuation. We got back to the house, and I just said, Okay, I can go. And I just, I went.
It was kind of crazy. What’s really strange is I realized during this tour, I’ve flown to Miami during the wildfires. I traveled to Texas during the awful massive flooding. I went to New York during an unprecedented heat wave that actually blew a circuit during the screening.
This has been such a journey for this movie so I’m just kind of hoping nothing bad happens on the opening, that everything seems okay and everyone’s able to go to their AMC theaters. But it’s been a push, this movie.
What’s the reception been like at the screenings that you’ve attended?
Lisa Brenner: It’s been amazing. Most of the screenings—we’ve been in a lot of Jewish film festivals because there is a very heavy Jewish theme of the movie. But we’ve also been in just regular festivals like the Phoenix Film Festival. And all these, the response has been basically the same.
The message of the movie is multiculturalism, it’s unity, it’s chosen family versus the family that you were born into. The movie is really about love and that we’re all one. I think what is really getting across in all of these festivals is that message.
There’s laughter from beginning to end. I hear the same tears. I think one thing we all share universally is that feeling that we could love or be loved. And that’s really what it comes down to.
It makes you question nature versus nurture, whether you’re adopted or you have adopted a child. Does that make your child not your child because they’re not your DNA? Of course not.
It really touches on all of it and I think it really does have a universal message. I really do want to spread my own feeling of unity to the world because we are so divided right now. That’s my personal beliefs is that we are all connected. We’re all loved. We’re all one. Not to sound all airy fairy, but it’s true.
How long did it take for you to write the script and in what ways did it evolve throughout that process?
Lisa Brenner: Well, it took about two years, I would say. It started very serious. It started very melodramatic. I was really staying very close to the real story and then I realized I didn’t want to put that energy into the world.
I’ve gotten to a point where, at the end of the day, I want to just turn my brain off and watch fun, whether fantasy, reality, whatever it is, that I want to just turn my brain off to the reality of the world. I don’t want to watch something of someone struggling and unless it’s true crime, then I could watch that.
As it’s true crime, that’s fine. But to see another actor having to go through all of this, it’s like, Oh, I don’t want to do that. So, I wanted comedy. I just kind of rewrote the whole thing with levity, comedy, and humor because that’s the way I look at the world.
I feel like sometimes, when things get so bad and you can look at the world with that lens right now—without comedy, that’s what keeps me going, that’s what lightens everything, that’s what gives us hope. Just having that response to it instead of the heaviness of it.
I really believe that comedy is a power—it gives you that you can just look at the situation instead of be subjected to it. So, yeah, so that’s how it evolved. Went from tragedy to comedy.
Yeah. That’s one thing we’re known for, for G-d knows how many years.
Lisa Brenner: Exactly, exactly. At the worst times in history, you see that comedies are what was what the audiences wanted to see. I don’t know. I hope this movie touches people. I hope it gets to people.
We have a limited release at AMC nationwide, but I know in a lot of the cities, I’m getting a lot of texts from friends. “You’re not in Utah,” where we shot, but hopefully, as more people see it, more theaters pick it up, and it could be more of a universal message.
How did you all end up deciding on Utah? Because I watched to the very end and was surprised to see that, especially with the overhead shots establishing in LA.
Lisa Brenner: Yeah. Thankfully, that was so important to me that they looked authentic. Because I know if I’m watching something and being from living here in LA—I’m from New York, but you could tell as soon as one thing doesn’t seem authentic, you’re like, the whole thing, all my suspension of disbelief has been ruined. We were really, really careful with that.
Utah, my friend is a producer there and he produces a lot of Hallmark movies. He had a great crew. They shoot very inexpensively.
I worked on a teeny, teeny budget for the movie so we were able to make it work.
Now, the funny thing is, in Utah, it snows a lot. It was April when we were first starting to shoot. The week before we started shooting, there was snow on all the mountains. And living in LA, there’s no snow on the mountains.
They promised us, they said, “Next week, it’ll all go away.” And it did. The flowers were blossoming, and we had what looked like LA spring. We were so lucky. But yeah, that’s why I chose Utah.
Was this April of 2023 or 2024?
Lisa Brenner: I think it was 23. I don’t even know. We’re in 25. I think it was 23. Yeah. So it’s been a journey. It takes a long time.
When did production wrap?
Lisa Brenner: Pre-production was probably April of 23, then production wrapped May. We shot it in about three weeks in Utah.
So it finished in plenty of time before SAG-AFTRA went on strike?
Lisa Brenner: Yes. Oh my gosh. We were so lucky. Right before. We finished before, I think, the directors strike, the writers. I can’t remember who was striking at that point, but yes, definitely the actors. We did it all before. It was kind of amazing.
Yeah, the directors didn’t strike. They reached an agreement, but it was writers and SAG-AFTRA that made for Hot Labor Summer.
Lisa Brenner: Yes. No, we were very, very lucky with that. Very lucky.
Shanah tovah.
Lisa Brenner: Shanah tovah. I like all your posters. I’m right there with you.
Yeah. Well, the top one I picked up at the March for Israel. I was walking from the White House to the White House Visitor Center, and A Wider Bridge had a table in the park by the Visitor Center so I picked that one up. And then the Proud Jewish Democrat, I got that one during the DNC as JDCA had sideline events that entire week.
Lisa Brenner: Amazing. Keep fighting the good fight.
