Alex and Marcus Lewis Reflect on How ‘Tell Me Who I Am’ Helped Them Finally Find Closure

Warning: This article contains potentially triggering content pertaining to sexual abuse, as well as Tell Me Who I Am spoilers, a new Netflix documentary.

When twin brothers Alex and Marcus Lewis agreed to participate in Tell Me Who I Am—a new Netflix documentary on their life story from director Ed Perkins and producer Simon Chinn—they hadn’t conceptualized just how many people might watch it on the streaming service.

“We’re quite nervous,” Marcus Lewis admitted, speaking to Decider on the day before the film’s release. “Of course, we’ve all got Netflix, and we all watch Netflix. But when you have a meeting with Netflix and they say ‘It’s going to be in 160 countries and 70 languages,’ you suddenly realize the enormity of it.”

Anyone who has seen the documentary, which is now streaming, will understand the anxiety. The Lewis brothers’ story is both incredibly compelling and moving, and incredibly personal and sad. It begins with Alex, who lost all of his memories in a motorcycle accident when he was 18 years old. He never regained what he lost, and relied on his twin Marcus to tell him his life’s story. For nearly 15 years, he trusted the rosy version of his childhood that Marcus told him. Despite their strict stepfather—their birth father died in a car crash three days after they were born—Alex assumed they were happy because they grew up with a wealthy aristocratic family in Sussex, England. But after their mother died, Alex discovered that Marcus had—in an effort to protect him from trauma—kept a big secret from him: Their mother sexually abused them as children.

The brothers have told a partial version of the story before. They initially went public with a 2013 article for The Sunday Times of London, followed by a 2013 book written with author Joanna Hodgkin. But even after Alex discovered the horrifying truth, Marcus refused to give him details. He was unable to relive that trauma and unwilling to burden his brother with it. That is, until the two sat down in the final act of Tell Me Who I Am, and had the painful but ultimately therapeutic conversation for the very first time, on camera.

“We’ve achieved closure beyond anything I could have imagined with each other by making this movie,” Alex Lewis said. “That’s an incredible gift the film has given us.”

The job of any documentary is to tell one story as well as possible in 90 minutes, give or take, and Tell Me Who I Am does tell the particular story of Lewis brothers very well. But of course, there’s more to people than their trauma. Both brothers, who are now 55, want people to know that “we have a very positive outlook on life, despite everything that you see in the movie.”

“We’ve both got good marriages, and we both have two children around the same age,” Alex Lewis said. “We live very fulfilled lives. We’re busy in our jobs, we run our company together, and we run everything together that we do—always have.”

That company is Fundu Lagoon, a luxury resort hotel on Pemba Island, part of the Zanzibar Archipelago off the coast of East Africa. The brothers are two of four shareholders who run the business. “I lived on the island and built it by hand for two years,” Marcus Lewis said. Neither brother had ever been to any African country or thought to get into the hotel industry until, one night two decades ago while drinking with a friend, the idea struck them to buy an island. “We ended up not buying an island because it was too difficult. But we bought a little beach on the northern island of Zanzibar that’s called Pemba. It’s a beautiful place.”

Though they remained in England—Marcus lives in London and Alex lives just outside of London—they frequently spend time in Zanzibar. “We love it there,” Marcus Lewis said. “Traveling is our main thing. My wife is Spanish, so we’re going to Spain for the [UK school holiday] half-term.”

Marcus’s children are aged 10 and 12, and Alex’s children are aged 13 and 9. “We’re probably a little bit soft on our kids,” Alex Lewis admitted. “Our wives have to do a lot more of the disciplinary things. We pretty much let them do whatever they want because that’s the opposite of what we had. And we’re quite overprotective with them.”

Both fathers are worried about talking to their children about the documentary, in particular. “We’ve done this movie in conjunction with NAPAC, which is the National Association for People Abused in Childhood,” Alex Lewis said. “They helped us through the reaction we’re getting from the public and how to talk to our kids. They’re gearing their websites up. They’re getting ready for the movie. There’s going to be a lot of people to help.”

Already, the brothers have met hundreds of people at screenings who have opened up to them about their own abuse. It was overwhelming at first but ultimately gratifying. “We want it to be a conversation that’s not taboo,” Marcus Lewis said. “Maybe you discuss this movie at a dinner party, and a friend tells you, ‘You know, I was abused as a kid.’ I think that would be an amazing thing. People shouldn’t be ashamed of what happened in their past, it’s not their fault.”

“We had no idea of the enormity of what the movie could mean to other people,” Alex Lewis added. “That’s going to be a very rewarding part of this journey for us.”

Currently, the brothers are focused on promoting the movie and continuing to run their company. Neither are on social media, and plan to keep it that way. They have had a few movie offers for their story already, but they’re taking it slow.

“If it comes along, and it works, then we would,” Alex Lewis said. “But we’re under the guise of Netflix. This is their movie. We don’t want to upset them in any way. Maybe one day. Who knows what’s to come in the years ahead.”

Right now, he continued, they are just starting to see the documentary for the achievement that it is. “It’s taken us 15 to 20 times watching the film to feel comfortable with it. We were nervous at first. But we’re starting to be quite proud. We don’t feel we’ve made a movie about sexual abuse—we hope we haven’t anyway. We think we made a movie about love.”

If you or someone you know is in need of support, you can reach out to NAPAC online or by phone at 0808-801-0331 in the U.K. You can also reach out to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) online or by phone at 800-656-4673 in the U.S.

Watch Tell Me Who I Am on Netflix