#1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is one of America's favorite inspirational storytellers, with more than twenty-five million copies of her award-winning books in print. A dozen have topped bestseller lists, many of which have been developed as major motion pictures. Her latest, Someone Like You , is one of them--but this time, Karen and her husband Donald, used their savings to make the film all on their own without the help of studios or investors. Shot last year in her home state of Tennessee, as well as Alabama, Someone Like You was co-written by Kingsbury and Tyler Russell ( A Thousand Tomorrows ), who makes his feature directorial debut. Kingsbury and Russell also produced the film, alongside Natalie Ruffino Wilson ( Best Laid Plans ) and Trevor K. Ball ( This is 20 ). The film stars Sarah Fisher who plays the two lead roles ( Degrassi: The Next Generation , Kiss and Cry ), Jake Allyn ( No Man's Land , The Quad ), Robyn Lively ( Teen Witch , The Karate Kid Part III ), Bart Johnson ( High School Musical I , II , III ), Scott Reeves ( Nashville , The Young and the Restless ), and Lynn Collins ( The Walking Dead , X-Men Origins: Wolverine ). The film explores the timely topic of embryo adoption, a subject close to Karen's heart, as her One Chance Foundation has given several grants to embryo adoption. A portion of proceeds from Someone Like You will benefit the organization. Actor Taylor Lautner and his wife Tay Lautner are marketing partners with the film. A portion of proceeds will also benefit their The Lemons Foundation , which encourages and advocates for those struggling with mental health and provides accessible resources and support. Head to someonelikeyou.movie to see where it's playing at a theater near you. You can also buy a ticket for a friend here as part of the 'Share the Hope' campaign. The more tickets sold, the longer the film stays in theaters.
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00:00 Hey, this is Karen Kingsbury and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:05 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is one of America's favorite inspirational
00:10 storytellers with more than 25 million copies of her award-winning books in print, many
00:15 of which have developed as major motion pictures.
00:19 Her latest, Someone Like You, is one of them, but this time Karen and her husband Donald
00:23 used their savings to make the film all on their own without the help of studios or investors.
00:29 We caught up with her from her home state of Tennessee this week to hear all about it.
00:34 This movie was sort of inspired by the book, obviously, Someone Like You.
00:38 The idea of two sisters separated at the Petri dish.
00:41 You know, one grows up in her biological family's home and the mom can't have any more children
00:46 so they donate the other embryo who sits on, you know, on ice, deep cryopreservation for
00:52 four years and then becomes the child of a husband-wife doctor team, states away.
00:58 And neither sister having any idea about the other.
01:02 And then, you know, a love story that kind of plays out of a guy who was in love with
01:05 his best friend London, but something tragic happens to her.
01:08 He finds out she was conceived in in vitro fertilization and there's another embryo and
01:13 whether it was a brother or sister, it's kind of a final act of love he can do for London.
01:18 And then he finds this girl whose world is rocked by the news and only he can kind of
01:23 help her navigate that betrayal and, you know, everything she wants to know about the sister
01:28 she never knew.
01:29 And along the way, he falls in love.
01:31 London was an in vitro baby.
01:33 We couldn't get pregnant otherwise.
01:34 The procedure gave us two embryos.
01:36 What about the other?
01:38 We gave it to a doctor who works with infertile couples.
01:41 You're saying London might have a sibling?
01:43 I was in a conversation at a speaking event and this woman walked up and she had three
01:47 four-year-olds and I said, "Oh, they're so cute."
01:50 They didn't look a lot like her, but you know, whatever.
01:53 And she said, "Well, you know, you might want to know, you might find this interesting,
01:56 but they were all adopted as embryos."
01:59 And that was just a complete like foreign concept to me.
02:02 I had no idea that that was even a possibility.
02:06 And so I began to do research and found that there's up to a million embryos on ice awaiting
02:11 adoption right now.
02:12 And I didn't even know that was a thing.
02:14 So that started the story in my heart and the way it looks right now, you know, the
02:18 way it is on the big screen is just exactly like what I had in my heart to begin with.
02:22 It's a very deep story and we didn't want a kind of a lighthearted Christian film.
02:29 You know, we wanted it to feel like a mainstream movie that would be able to hold up to other
02:35 stories.
02:36 Yeah, we enjoyed making it.
02:38 You know, we had pre-production.
02:40 There's two stages of actually making a movie.
02:42 And the first part is pre-production where you have to get all the departments together.
02:46 You know, you've got set design and costumes and locations and crew, lighting, sound, camera,
02:54 that kind of thing.
02:55 And we have to all meet together for like two, three months.
02:58 It'd be much easier to not do it, right?
02:59 To not be the one who is out there, you know, funding it and picking locations and hiring
03:05 actors.
03:06 But it was the only way to show the world what God puts on my heart to start with, which
03:11 is how he always gives me a story.
03:13 There's other adaptations of my books that have been shown on Hallmark or, you know,
03:18 Pure Flix, and I'm very thankful for them and people love them, but they are very different
03:22 than the books and that's okay.
03:24 You know, it's just different.
03:26 But this was the chance for us to see something where the images would blend and it's very
03:31 much the same.
03:32 Like the imagery I see in my heart is exactly what I'm seeing on the screen.
03:36 And people are literally writing in to say it changed my life.
03:40 I felt healed watching this.
03:41 I have more hope than I've had in years.
03:44 I'm going to see it again for my fourth time this weekend.
03:47 And so, you know, getting the word out about it is what we're really all about right now,
03:51 making sure that people don't miss the chance to see someone like you in theaters.
03:55 And they're all going to the website, which is someonelikeyou.movie.
03:59 And they're getting their tickets and they're buying tickets for strangers, whatever they
04:03 can do.
04:04 My dad, you know, he's been in heaven now for many years, but when he was alive, he
04:09 often said just beautiful, poetic things.
04:11 And one that he would often say was that life is not a dress rehearsal.
04:16 You have one chance to write the story of your life.
04:20 And let's make that story a bestseller.
04:22 So while I've written, you know, dozens of bestselling books, the one I care most about
04:27 is the bestseller I'm writing with the days of my life.
04:29 That's the one that has to matter the most.
04:32 Where you know, I'm going to love well, and I'm going to laugh often and look for the
04:37 miracles that God is creating around me and live for Jesus.
04:40 That's the key to that bestselling story of your life.
04:44 So with that in mind, we created the one chance foundation, which is in support of adoption
04:49 and a hundred percent of money given to the one chance foundation goes to adoption grants
04:54 for families who are adopting either internationally or domestically could be a baby, could be
05:00 an older child.
05:01 And now we also give grants for families who are adopting an embryo.
05:06 Really go check out someone like you.
05:09 An amazing story.
05:10 It looks unbelievable and it pulls at the heartstrings.
05:14 Yeah, I cried.
05:15 It got me emotional.
05:17 Taylor and Tay Lautner have a foundation called the Lemons Foundation and a podcast called
05:22 The Squeeze.
05:24 And they are all about helping people with mental health.
05:26 And so they love the movie.
05:28 They watched someone like you.
05:30 I gave them a screening link to see it before it was in theaters.
05:34 We kind of made a connection and I said, you know what, let me give a percentage of the
05:38 proceeds of tickets to the Lemons Foundation so we can help people to keep on turning the
05:43 pages of their story so that they would make it to the next day in the story that God is
05:48 writing with the days of their life.
05:50 And so that's the goal with that.
05:51 And we have many other actually ministries and organizations that were giving a piece
05:56 of the proceeds to the end.
06:00 They've also come alongside me and help get the word out.
06:02 That's really the only way I can do it.
06:03 I'm an independent filmmaker with no studio help.
06:06 And we funded the movie and the marketing by ourselves.
06:09 So in order to have it be heard by the masses, I needed big partners like the Lautners to
06:16 just help me get the word out.
06:17 And it's been a great process.
06:20 We're so happy we could not be happier with how people are responding to someone like
06:23 you in theaters.
06:25 So they can go to someonelikeyou.movie and find the theater near them.
06:30 And then if they can't afford a ticket, we have a program called Share the Hope.
06:35 And they can, you know, every morning we have tickets that are free that are available and
06:39 they run out every day.
06:40 But if you get there early enough, you can get a free ticket to see someone like you.
06:45 And then we have other people who are buying tickets for strangers because they just want
06:48 to help other people experience the hope of this movie.
06:52 So right, you know, we don't have any plans for this movie to be anywhere except at the
06:57 theater.
06:58 So this is the time to go see it.
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