Jake Lacy plays a monster in plain sight in A Friend of the Family

Jan Broberg is no stranger to sharing her story. The now 60-year-old actress and activist has dedicated much of her adult life to speaking out against child sexual abuse, often by opening up about her own harrowing experience: As a child in Idaho in the 1970s, she was groomed and eventually kidnapped by her neighbor Robert "B" Berchtold, a family friend who manipulated not only her but her entire family. Broberg was ultimately abducted twice, first at the age of 12 and then a second time at age 14 — a shocking saga that she first chronicled in a memoir she cowrote with her mother. Later, Broberg and her family were the subjects of the hit Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, which took a deeper dive into Berchtold's chilling manipulations.

Now, Broberg is ready to share her story with a new audience. She serves as a producer on the upcoming Peacock series A Friend of the Family (premiering Oct. 6) — a gripping and nuanced miniseries she hopes will have the biggest impact yet.

"I needed all of the real human beings to have their full story told," Broberg tells EW. "It's not caricatures. It's not a simple story. There's a lot of psychology behind grooming. By telling the story in this almost psychological thriller kind of way, you understand that it's something that happens to a lot of people."

Peacock Jake Lacy as Robert Berchtold in 'A Friend of the Family'

Nick Antosca (The Act) created A Friend of the Family, which explores how Berchtold ingratiated himself with the Brobergs over a period of years. Actresses Hendrix Yancey and Mckenna Grace play younger and older versions of Jan, while Anna Paquin and Colin Hanks star as her mother Mary Ann and her father Bob. Jake Lacy also stars as Berchtold, and he plays the role with both his signature charm and a sinister undercurrent, lurking beneath his smiling facade. The result is a gripping nine-episode series that unfolds slowly, revealing details and devastating emotions that the previous documentary only touched on.

"The truth is this was a slow burn," Antosca says. "It happened over so many years, and it happened in the context of safety and normalcy. It happened in the context of the songs you listen to as you're walking to school, or the conversations you have with your friends. So, it's important to get the texture of real life."

Broberg describes Berchtold as an effortlessly charming figure, a master manipulator who brainwashed her with stories of UFOs and groomed both her parents to get access to her. (He ultimately died by suicide in 2005, reportedly only serving 10 days in jail for the kidnappings.) When it came time to cast the show, Broberg and Antosca wanted an actor who could fully capture Berchtold's charisma, ultimately recruiting Lacy — a recent Emmy nominee for The White Lotus.

 "This person can't be twirling a mustache," Antosca explains of casting Lacy. "This is not an obvious villain. In retrospect, it's easy to see red flags, but this is someone who is so charismatic, charming, safe, trusted, and respected — and we needed somebody who embodies that, somebody who has a genuine goodness about them but is not afraid to go to the places that are required to play this role."

Lacy says he was initially hesitant to take on the role, but Broberg's involvement and commitment to the story helped sway him. He tells EW he was particularly intrigued by the show's nuanced approach to telling her story, presenting the Broberg family not as headline-making true crime victims but as real people — people whom he hopes viewers will empathize with.

"The strength of getting to tell this in a narrative format over nine episodes is that while it's all factually true, this hopefully gives the perspective of what it was like to be living this," Lacy explains. "It's easy to watch the documentary and think, 'How did you let something like that happen?' It's maybe easy to sit in judgement of people. I think the hope for Nick and Jan is to say, 'Well, this is how. This is what it looks like when you're swept up in this, and it's someone so close to you.'"

When Lacy arrived on set for his first day of filming, he discovered that Broberg had written him a letter — something she did for several cast members. She described the real-life Berchtold as she knew him as a child, someone endlessly persuasive and whose "superpower" was his warmth and ability to cry on command. At the same time, she also encouraged Lacy to "go for it" and find his own take on the character.

"He really was both subtle and brazen at the same time," Lacy says of Berchtold. "He wasn't just grooming Jan, but he was grooming an entire family. In doing so, he was kind of cordoning them off into silos and presenting a different version of himself so as to have control over each of them to get to Jan. Juggling those different faces and relationships is what allowed him to get what he wanted."

Broberg's real-life mother Mary Ann and her two sisters also contributed to the show, sharing family photos, diaries, and even actual clothes, some of which were used on screen as costumes. (Broberg's father, Bob, died in 2018.) When EW spoke with Antosca and Broberg via Zoom in August, the writer praised Broberg for the wealth of material she and her family shared, and at one point, he motioned off screen, showing Broberg the "boxes right over here I still have to give you back." "I think the art department and wardrobe department were overwhelmed — in a good way," he says with a laugh.

For Broberg herself, she says she never expected the show to be an exact documentary of her life, but she was still pleasantly surprised by how the production team meticulously worked to recreate her childhood bedroom or imitate her old wardrobe. "I saw the care that they took to make my family home look like my family home, which they didn't have to do," she adds gratefully. But she says the most rewarding part of making A Friend of the Family was how thoughtfully it portrays her own family. When EW spoke to her, Broberg never got emotional while talking about herself, but she teared up while talking about her mother, praising Mary Ann for her candor and bravery as she shared personal details with the show's writers.

"I'm so grateful that we're going to tell her story fully, so that people can understand, 'This could happen to me,' or 'It did, and I'm too embarrassed to face it,'" Broberg says. "My parents were so brave to tell everything, no matter what."

The result, she hopes, is a show that will shine a light on the nuances of abuse — and how most abusers aren't strangers to their victims. She remembers the first time she stepped into the show's version of her childhood home, where instead of feeling sadness, she just felt at peace.

"It felt full circle," Broberg explains. "It was like this culmination of deep gratitude and of being in the place where I am in my life. I know that I can help others find that, no matter what they've gone through. They can not only survive, but they can thrive. They can find hope and get on their healing journey — and their whole families can too."

Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story — as well as all of our 2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29.

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