It has been a busy two years for actor Makram Khoury, one of the recipients of Jerusalem Film Festival’s Achievement Award this year.
“I’ve done eight projects in two years, which is a lot. Three of them were leading parts and some were lovely small parts in a number of international films,” says the 69-year-old actor, who is also sitting on the jury of the festival’s In the Spirit of Freedom sidebar.
His recent work includes international films such as Fatih Akin’s The Cut and Natalie Portman’s Amos Oz adaptation A Tale Of Love And Darkness and Richard Raymond’s Iran-set Desert Dancer as well as Israeli comedy Sukaryot and Magic Men, for which he won an Israeli Film Academy award for best actor last year.
Prior to that Khoury was touring with Peter Brook’s theatre production 11 and 12, revolving around the theme of religious tolerance.
“Honestly, I don’t know what they’re giving me the award for,” says self-deprecating Khoury.
“Lia van Leer called me and said, ‘We want to give you an award.’ I guess it’s for my achievement in cinema and life, which is nice coming from Lia van Leer, someone who I really respect as an example of a beautiful human being.”
Looking at Khoury’s filmography, however, it is not difficult to see why he is being honoured. The Palestinian actor, who was born in Jerusalem in 1945 but grew up in Haifa after a brief period in a refugee camp in Lebanon, is one of the
most celebrated actors in Israeli cinema today. A true chameleon, Khoury’s past roles range from playing a Holocaust survivor to an Israeli prime minister, and an Iraqi prime minister to an Israeli-Arab wheeler-dealer in Sukaryot.
The actor says that after 50 years on working on the stage and big screen, the process of transformation is second nature to him now.
“Michael Chekhov the great actor, director and teacher, in the introduction of one of his books on acting theory says ‘an actor is the closest thing to God’. This sentence took me years to understand this sentenced
“I eventually realised that the meaning was that as an actor you have to be almost every human being. The experience of a Chinese or Japanese person, though we may look different, can be exactly the same as mine. People are people – we have the same needs. says Khoury. “As an actor you have to be open and understanding and not judge the characters you are playing.”
The actor says that after 50 years’ work on the stage and big screen, the process of transformation is second nature to him now.
“Michael Chekhov the great actor, director and teacher, in the introduction of one of his books on acting theory, says, ‘An actor is the closest thing to God.’ This sentence took me years to understand.
“I eventually realised the meaning was that as an actor you have to be almost every human being. The experience of a Chinese or Japanese person, though we may look different, can be exactly the same as mine. People are people — we have the same needs,” says Khoury. “As an actor you have to be open and under- standing and not judge the characters you’re playing.”
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