A Filmmaker Learned She Had the BRCA Mutation. She Had a Double Mastectomy — Now She's Telling Her Story (Exclusive) Cara Lynn ShultzSeptember 19, 2025 at 3:06 AM 0 Studio Sido Filmmaker Devin Sidell based her film 'Love, Danielle' on her reallife health issues Devin Sidell, a filmmaker and actress,...
- - A Filmmaker Learned She Had the BRCA Mutation. She Had a Double Mastectomy — Now She's Telling Her Story (Exclusive)
Cara Lynn ShultzSeptember 19, 2025 at 3:06 AM
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Studio Sido
Filmmaker Devin Sidell based her film 'Love, Danielle' on her real-life health issues -
Devin Sidell, a filmmaker and actress, tested positive for the BRCA genetic mutation after her mother had ovarian cancer and her sister had breast cancer
She had a preventative double mastectomy, hysterectomy, and oophorectomy (ovary removal), and wanted to share the experience so others feel less alone
Sidell created a bittersweet comedy based on her experience, Love, Danielle, saying, "It would have been amazing to have something I could have watched when I was going through this"
After Devin Sidell discovered she had the BRCA genetic mutation, meaning she had a higher chance of developing breast cancer, she realized there weren't any movies about what it's like to learn that news.
So she decided to make one herself.
"I had the idea when I was coming out of anesthesia from my preventive double mastectomy surgery," Sidell tells PEOPLE exclusively about Love, Danielle, the bittersweet comedy that's based on her real-life experience.
"There's nothing out there in entertainment about this sort of situation that I've just been through, these difficult decisions that you're forced to make when you have a BRCA gene mutation. And I thought, 'Wow, it would have been really amazing to have something I could have watched when I was going through this, so that I could learn, and feel not so alone.' "
Lady Parts Productions
"Love, Danielle" is available on Apple TV+ Oct. 3, 2025.
Sidell — who has appeared in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Young and the Restless — wrote and stars in the film, which also features Jamie King (playing her sister Amy, a role based on Sidell's real-life sister Holly, who also had breast cancer), Lesley Ann Warren (a role based on her mother, who had ovarian cancer), and Barry Bostwick (as her father).
In the film, Warren's character doesn't have cancer. But after Sidell's mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she decided to undergo genetic testing. It was her sister's real-life breast cancer diagnosis that pushed Sidell to undergo preventative surgeries.
"Even though I assumed I was going to be positive for the BRCA1 mutation, I still cried. It was still a shock. I remember putting the phone on speaker. My husband was there and listening to the ob-gyn give me the results," Sidell tells PEOPLE about the genetic mutation, which "significantly increases your risk of cancer," the Cleveland Clinic explains.
Courtesy of Devin Sidell
Devin Sidell and her mother, Mary
"I got very emotional. I think I was hoping maybe, somehow, I secretly would be able to avoid it — and that was not the case."
As in real life, in Love, Danielle — available Oct. 3 on video-on-demand platforms like Apple TV+ — Sidell's character decides to undergo preventive surgery. She struggles with unsympathetic friends who question her choice, largely focused on the idea that Sidell would no longer be able to get pregnant. But "isn't my life more important than future hypothetical biological children?" Sidell says.
After her mastectomy, the Los Angeles native put her real-life reconstructive surgery on hold so she could include her post-mastectomy body in the film. "It was so important to me to show what my body looked like and what people actually have to go through in that situation," she says.
During a pivotal scene where her character, Danielle, looks at her post-mastectomy body in the mirror, "it was actually filmed in my own home, where I truly had been standing looking in the mirror after I had my surgery," she tells PEOPLE. "I felt very exposed. I was re-experiencing those feelings that I felt when I really did look at my body for the first time."
Ultimately, she tells PEOPLE, "I'm still very glad I did it. I think it's important to everybody who has been through this … If we have to go through this, everyone should know. It shouldn't be some sort of secret."
And while, yes, it's about cancer, Love, Danielle is ultimately a comedy, largely centered around the main character's challenging family and "how a dysfunctional family deals with some health issues," she says. "And I think it was important for us to bring in the comedy so it wasn't just another sort of cancer movie that focused on all the negatives."
Lady Parts Productions
Devin Sidell (left) and Jamie King in "Love, Danielle"
When people finish watching Love, Danielle, she says she hopes it will "encourage conversation around hereditary cancers."
"That's the most we can do — we're not hoping to make decisions for people. We are not trying to push one avenue versus another. We want to be able to give as much information as we can to people for them to make their own decisions, and it really starts with talking about it and finding out your family history."
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