Director Tim Wardle on ‘Three Identical Strangers’

The new documentary ‘Three Identical Strangers’ begins with Bobby Shafran, a man in his 50’s, reminiscing about leaving home in 1980 to attend community college in upstate New York.

When he arrived on campus, something weird started happening. Everyone was calling him “Eddy.”

Eddy--was Eddy Galland--someone who had gone to the same school the previous year, and who looked remarkably similar to Bobby. One of Eddy’s friends arranged for the two young men to meet and it quickly became clear that Bobby and Eddy were long-lost twins, adopted by different families as babies and now meeting for the first time.

Their story made the rounds in New York media, and when David Kellman saw the brothers’ picture in the paper and they looked just like him, he knew: Bobby and Eddy were not twins, but triplets.

From that moment, Bobby, Eddy and David were inseparable. They moved in together, went clubbing, did media appearances, and even landed a cameo in the 1985 Madonna movie ‘Desperately Seeking Susan.’

But darkness loomed--especially for the boys’ adoptive parents. The families had never been told their adopted sons had identical siblings. And the boys never knew about each other's’ existence until they met.

The reality was that the triplets had been unwitting subjects in a psychological study. Needless to say, the guinea pigs were not happy when they found out.

Director Tim Wardle documents all that and much more in his film ‘Three Identical Strangers.’ He recently spoke to KCRW’s Matt Holzman about the years-long process of making this twisty-turny documentary.