Ben Stiller hasn’t been on our screens quite as much over the last few years, but he’s set to return in a big way with Three Identical Strangers, a limited series inspired by the incredible true story of identical triplet brothers separated at birth.
Set in New York over several decades, Three Identical Strangers will tell the story of Bobby Shafran, David Kellman and Eddy Galland, “three complete strangers who inadvertently discover that they are identical triplets separated at birth. When the 19-year-olds’ joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, it also sets a chain of extraordinary and disturbing events in motion.” Ben Stiller is in final negotiations to star in Three Identical Strangers and executive produce the series. It’s expected that he will play the adult brothers.
Amy Lippman (Party of Five) is writing the series and serving as showrunner, with the project hailing from Sony Pictures Television, TriStar Television, and SK Global Entertainment. The real-life triplets were the focus of the 2018 documentary of the same name. With archival footage, re-enacted scenes, and present-day interviews, the documentary explained how the three brothers found each other by chance and the disturbing revelations that followed. The movie won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
SK Global Entertainment had originally set up Three Identical Strangers as a movie with Anthony McCarten set to pen the script, but it eventually expanded into a limited series and was set up at Sony Pictures Television. We’ve seen actors tackle dual roles before, be it Lindsey Lohan in The Parent Trap, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man With the Iron Mask, Nicolas Cage in Adaptation, Tom Hardy in Legend, Mark Ruffalo in I Know This Much Is True, and, of course, the greatest twin performance of all time… Adam Sandler in Jack and Jill.
While Ben Stiller may not have taken on many on-screen roles lately, he has been busy directing and producing, most notably Severance. The Apple TV series takes place at a biotechnology corporation that uses a medical procedure to separate the consciousness of their employees between their lives at work and outside of it. The series has been renewed for a second season.