Ancestry had a solid insight.
Most of us have huge blind spots about who our parents were before they were our parents, and the older generation would happily tell us, if we ever asked. They wanted a YouTube series that got people asking. They even had a name for it, unFamiliar, and an idea: a celebrity and a relative on a replica of grandma's couch, answering rapid-fire questions about each other.
The couch was cozy. It was also a set. And we needed something bigger. I jumped in and developed the show alongside the XX Artists team, and later Monks, and we kept coming back to the question of where these stories actually live. The answer was out in the world. The block your great-grandmother lived on. The acting studio where your mom got her start. The high school where you tried out for the play and blew it.
So we built the show on three things.
The People: a celebrity and someone who knew them before they were famous.
The Place: a location that does half the storytelling for you.
The Product: Ancestry's discoveries showing up on a phone in the middle of the conversation, right when somebody asks, "Wait, where did I get that from?"
After months of creative development, I co-wrote each episode with writer Cassie Romaska and directed all three.
Episode One sent Lisa Ann Walter and her sons into Manhattan's Lower East Side, where her great-grandparents landed from Italy. Then her Parent Trap co-star and best friend Elaine Hendrix walked out of Elizabeth Street Garden to tell her their great-grandparents had lived on the same street a century earlier. Lisa Ann had no idea it was coming.
Episode Two took Laura Dern and her mom, the late Diane Ladd, across New York, starting at The Actors Studio where Diane got her start. The beautiful reveal was that Laura's great-aunt, the family always called Prudie, had actually been named Laura.
Episode Three was a Father's Day special with Rob Lowe and his sons, John Owen and Matthew. Ten hours, four company moves, zigzagging all over Santa Monica to take Rob back to his old stomping grounds, including Santa Monica High, the "Handsome High" of the Brat Pack years. Rob is exactly as silly and kind as you'd hope, and the boys were charming even while they trolled their dad on camera. The DNA said Rob is built to sprint, which explains a lot about Chris Traeger. It also said he carries the gene for male pattern baldness. His failed Footloose audition came up too, and the DNA got blamed for that one.
My favorite moment happened off camera. Rob's hairstylist complimented my hair and offered to send me a box of his custom product. Rob got the baldness news on camera. I got the product. It's the little things, you know.
[VIDEO: Rob Lowe and sons]
The premiere launched with an exclusive on the TODAY Show, and it didn't slow down. Lisa Ann's episode earned 2.2 billion impressions. Laura and Diane's earned 1.5 billion. Rob's earned 3.7 billion across 249 placements, including Entertainment Tonight, TODAY, People, E!, USA Today, and more than a hundred local news stations. More than 7.4 billion impressions across three episodes, almost all of it earned.
Victoria Welch, who produced unFamiliar on the Ancestry side, put the reason better than I could:
"Our product is so nuanced. We're talking about identity, we're talking about ethnicity. We taught Blaine how to talk about Ancestry one time, and we didn't have to teach him again."
