Jenna Ushkowitz, best known for playing Tina Cohan Chang on Glee, executive produced the new documentary Twinsters which follows two twin adoptees who find one another in adulthood.

Jenna Ushkowitz On ‘Twinsters’

Twinsters shows the true life reunion of twins Samantha Futerman and Anais Bordier, who were separated at birth and found each other on the Internet. Ushkowitz, as a longtime friend of Futerman and a fellow adoptee, eagerly became involved in Futerman’s Twinsters project.

“Samantha Futerman, the American Twinster, and I have gone way back. We auditioned together as kids on the East Coast and we both moved to LA to pursue our careers,” Ushkowitz told uInterview exclusively at SXSW. “Two years back, she called me and told me, ‘I have this crazy story, I really want to tell you about it. Being a fellow adoptee, I think you would understand.’ And she said, ‘I found my twin! It’s this sort of crazy story and it’s changed my life.’ And I said, ‘What can I do to help? This is amazing, your story has to be shared.’”

Along with the documentary, Ushkowitz and Futerman teamed up again to found the Kindred Foundation For Adoption after seeing the incredible outreach from adoptees on the Twinster project’s Kickstarter page. “Sam was like, ‘We have to do something,'” Ushkowitz explained. “We felt almost compelled because we had such a good experience to share the positive life on adoption, and also be there emotionally for the ones that didn’t have the same experience.”

“Nobody’s story is the same. I think every adoptee has a very particular experience. It’s okay, whatever it is. No one has to be completely okay with it, or you can be absolutely okay with it, like I was. So we just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they’re not alone,” Ushkowitz added. “That they can share it with us and that we will be there for them, and to enhance the community, so that we can sit together and be like, ‘We’ve all been there, and we’re okay.'”

With her Glee days behind her, Ushkowitz is excited about what the future holds and is open to everything – from more producing to hitting Broadway. “I definitely plan on continuing to develop and produce,” Ushkowitz said, “But I will still continue to sing, dance and act as well.”