‘Damascus Cover’
New Israeli-filled spy thriller hits close to home
Damascus Cover, a new spy thriller that just opened throughout the US last week and is opening this week in the UK, tells the story of a Mossad agent in Syria in the late 1980s, and features a stellar cast. The film, directed by Daniel Zelik Berk, is based on a 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan, who has lived and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. He worked for years to bring Damascus Cover to the screen. His latest novel, The Spy’s Gamble, tells the story of an Israeli prime minister who vanishes after boarding a US submarine for a celebratory voyage.
In Damascus Cover, Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays the lead character Ari Ben-Sion, an undercover agent who poses as a German in the late 1980s and is sent to Syria to smuggle a chemical-weapons expert and his family The late John Hurt, in his last screen credit, plays Ari’s knowing handler, while Olivia Thirlby (who played the wisecracking best friend in Juno) is a flirtatious photojournalist who knows more than she’s willing to say.
A number of Israeli actors have key roles. These include Igal Naor (best known lately for his role as Doron Kavillio’s father on Fauda) as a Syrian general; Aki Avni (who became one of Israel’s first television stars in the series Tironoot, and who appeared in Joseph Cedar’s first movie, Time of Favor); Tsahi Halevi (Bethlehem and Fauda); and Neta Riskin (Shtisel and Eran Ricklis’ Shelter).
Navid Negahban, the Iranian-born actor who played Abu Nazir, the arch-villain in the television series Homeland, has the central role of Sarraj, a brutal Syrian intelligence official. It’s not unusual for Negahban to be involved in an Israel-oriented project. He starred in the 2015 Israeli film Baba Joon, directed by Yuval Delshad, about an Iranian family that runs a turkey farm in the Negev – which won the Ophir for Best Film. Negahban acted the role partly in Hebrew.
In a phone interview from his Los Angeles home, Negahban said that Damascus Cover was “a great project. I enjoyed it. We had a good group of people and we had lots of fun.”
To prepare for the role, Negahban read Kaplan’s novel and found that he could relate to his character, who is capable of evil deeds but who believes fervently in his cause. “I tried to keep him as pure as possible,” said Negahban, although he admitted (small spoiler) that he hoped “audiences won’t hate me” for killing a sympathetic character.
The story fascinated him because “it’s a period piece but it definitely relates to what is happening right now” in Syria. “History repeats itself.”
He loved working with Igal Naor, whom he met while filming Baba Joon, and said that he had become a fan of Fauda, which “has some good nuances. I love the acting the guys are doing.”
In addition to Damascus Cover, Negahban can currently be seen on television on the series Legion, which airs on the YES network. Negahban plays Shadow King, a powerful psychic mutant. His role on the show has taken him far and wide, including to Comic Con, where he met with some of the show’s most devoted fans. “Legion is the first time where a comic character speaks Farsi,” he said.
Before the next season of Legion starts, he is off to Norway to shoot Cry Me a River, a psychological thriller.
Coming up next spring will be the newest Disney live-action film Aladdin, in which he plays Sultan, Jasmine’s father, and which stars Will Smith as the genie.
“I was like a kid in the candy store” on the set of the film, he said, because “the cast was amazing.” Another aspect of the movie that Negahban liked was that “the story has more depth” than a typical kids’ movie, bringing the audience “deeper into understanding the culture and characters. It’s about our dreams and ambitions.”
Although Negahban will be busy with Legion and Cry Me a River in the near future, he doesn’t rule out working in Israel again, maybe even on Fauda: “I would love to do it.”