‘A Friend of the Family’: See the Cast vs. Their Real-Life Counterparts
Years after the Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight told the true story of Jan Broberg and how she was taken twice by family friend Robert Berchtold, Peacock is dramatizing the same sordid saga with the new limited series A Friend of the Family.
The nine-episode show stars Jake Lacy (The White Lotus) as Berchtold, Hendrix Yancey (Stranger Things) and Mckenna Grace (The Handmaid’s Tale) as Jan Broberg, and Anna Paquin (True Blood) and Colin Hanks (The Offer) as her parents, Mary Ann and Bob Broberg.
“The Brobergs — devoted to their faith, family, and community — were utterly unprepared for the sophisticated tactics their neighbor used to exploit their vulnerabilities, drive them apart, and turn their daughter against them,” the Peacock description reads. “This is the story of how their lives were permanently altered — and how they survived.”
Scroll down to see photos of the cast of Friend of the Family in character, alongside archival photos of Berchtold and the Brobergs.
A Friend of the Family, Limited Series premiere, Thursday, Oct. 6, Peacock
Jake Lacy as Robert Berchtold
After authorities caught up with him, Berchtold was charged with kidnapping and other offenses in 1977, but he was ultimately acquitted and sent to a mental facility for six months, according to Parade. Decades later, Berchtold attacked a member of Jan and Mary Ann’s security team at a 2003 book event and was found guilty of assault, and he died by suicide in 2005 while awaiting sentencing, the magazine reports.
Anna Paquin as Mary Ann Broberg
Both Mary Ann — who wrote the 2003 book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story — and Bob revealed in Abducted in Plain Sight that they had separate sexual interactions with Berchtold as part of his manipulation of the family.
Colin Hanks as Bob Broberg
Bob, who died in 2018 at age 80, admitted in the documentary that his dalliance with Berchtold was the worst thing he had ever done “as far as breaking the trust and the fidelity that I had with my wife.”
Hendrix Yancey as Young Jan Broberg
In her adult years, Jan Broberg became a TV actress, playing nurse Louise in more than three dozen episodes of Everwood, for example. She and Mary Ann have a new book out, titled The Jan Broberg Story: The True Crime Story of a Young Girl Abducted and Brainwashed by a Friend of the Family.
Mckenna Grace as Jan Broberg
“We have to talk about these things because it’s something that’s happening to someone,” Jan told CBR recently. “If it’s not you, then it might be someone you know. Everybody knows someone that has this kind of child abuse in their life, and we don’t talk about it enough.”
