His amazing portrayal of Lieutenant-colonel Tawfiq Zacharya in Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit was one of the keys to the success of the Israeli film, which won three awards at the Un Certain Regard section in the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. That led to winning the Best Actor at the European Film Awards and the Jerusalem Film Festival, among many others, in the same year.

Sasson Gabay was born in Baghdad in 1947 and raised in Israel from the age of three. More than 10 years after the release of the film, he became the formal and sad musical director again in the musical stage version in Broadway and was traveling throughout the US with the play when the Covid crisis stopped everything.

Gabay has also a key part in Oslo, the HBO TV movie that tells the little-known story of how the Oslo Accord – that brought peace for a while to the Middle East – was reached. Even if he’s there only for a few minutes as Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, his performance is brilliant. He also can be seen in the third season of Shtisel, the acclaimed Israeli show that was recently brought back by Netflix.  

How challenging was it to portray Shimon Peres in an international TV movie?

People ask me in Israel, how did I portray the character of Peres, if I imitated his voice.  And I said always that better people can imitate Peres in Israel than me, I am not a great imitator. I just wanted to take something from his personality, the way of speaking and the way of thinking, his tempo. So it wasn’t that tough, but I had to be careful not to imitate him, to take something, and to bring it over through my filter. On the other hand, I wanted to take something from him, for every Israeli, he is a well-known character. First of all, let’s talk about the look of Peres. I didn’t want to take all the makeup and all this plastic work that they have done on me at the beginning, this was my notion, just to make a hint of Peres, to make it as little as possible. Because I think the effort to make me look exactly like him, looked to me not as dramatic as an actor. But they told me they don’t mind how the other characters would look, but the director’s idea was to make him as close to the real Peres as possible. So I said to myself let’s give it a try and see how I would behave with it. And sure enough, we did it and I mean I had a wonderful artist, Daniel, and when I saw it, it made half of my job done by the makeup artist. And then I changed my mind and I agreed to it and I was gladly doing it this way.  I mean I had a lot of things in mind, I had to make his personality clear in the guilt and all these arguments about the treaty, I had to take his stubborn side and being a tough negotiator. And on the other hand, not to make him remote from the audience, to make him someone that people can still understand. Luckily, I saw him so many times, I didn’t have to inquire so much about the character, I saw him so much on TV and as a matter of fact, I met him a few times, for brief meetings after premieres. 

Do you think that when he signed the Oslo Accord, he was aware that his life could be at risk for doing that?

I think yes. I didn’t ask him, and I didn’t read about it, but I know that Rabin, to start with, and him, probably thought about it. You can see their behavior, they were willing to make this treaty and this declaration and agreement, but on the other hand, you can see all the times that at the back of their minds, they were thinking about how they could come back home and face the other politicians and face the country and face the people. But the atmosphere then was different at the beginning and then it became more and more anti-Rabin, anti-Peres. And the right-wing people in Israel tried to portray them as traitors. So I don’t know exactly what was on their minds, but I’m sure without thinking about putting their lives in danger, they were thinking about the response of the people and the Government and the party when they were coming back with their results. On the other hand, it was an era of hope because since Rabin started to negotiate and talking about making pretty with the Palestinians, there was hope, so half of the people were in favor of it and believing in it and hoping for that. And the other half started to oppose it. 

How did Tawfiq Zacharya change your life?

It’s funny, yes, I think The Band’s Visit, was really a game-changer for me because we did it in 2007 and after we did it, I haven’t seen any release of it.  I met the director and he told me that we were accepted to the Cannes Film Festival for Un Certain Regard. So, the first time I saw the movie it was with 2,000 people in a big auditorium in Cannes. After the screening people were standing and cheering and clapping for at least 20 minutes and I had never experienced such a thing in my life. And I realized at that moment that we had something special. And since then, this film has been shown at so many film festivals all over the world and it had commercial success in Israel and also in the States and many countries, it sold and made quite a nice box office. It changed my exposure to the people so everybody from the industry, it made my face familiar for them. Afterward, I worked mostly in Israel, but I was well-known, and it was easier for people to choose me for certain parts because they knew me already. That is one side.  And then in 2010, Orin Wolf, who is the producer of The Band’s Visit on Broadway, approached me here in Israel and told me that he wants to do a musical and it sounded like a very crazy idea to me at the time. But I said yes. And then it took him some eight years to produce it and when he did it off-Broadway, I couldn’t do it, so Tony Shalhoub did it and then onto Broadway. And then they invited me again to do it. The same original film that I had done in 2007 reproduced itself as a show in the theater and it changed my life in this order that I spent a year on Broadway which is a dream of every actor, let alone an Israeli actor. And then almost a year on the tour and then this Fall we are talking about doing again the rest of the tour that we started. 

How was it to connect with that man in the beginning when you just had the script and 20 days to film it?

I remember the first time that Eran Kolirin, the director and the scriptwriter approached me about this film. He gave me a bit of the script, one page with a few things on it, and three or four lines about the character of Tawfiq. And only from reading this description, I first knew the character. I went and got to meet Eran and he told me that he wanted to make an audition for me, to see me. After our meeting, I gave him a call and I told him, “I don’t mind doing the audition, but I think you are wasting your time because you have got the man. I feel this man, I can feel the contradiction in his character”, I said as a half-joke. And sure enough, he accepted my vision and he didn’t audition me and he said: “okay, I am going with you, let’s put the energy on other things”. To relate to the character, to be part of it, it was kind of instinctive to me, because I felt a lot of the contradiction, between his stiffness and his formality, he is a formal man, and he is a policeman and he obeys orders and discipline, etc, etc. In his heart, he is an artist, his heart is like a little bird and he also carries a burden of his past, of the tragedy of his family. This contradiction of a man who’s trying to be stiff and serious and disciplined in public and that contradiction that inside is different. And he does not dare to show it to his fellow musicians or wherever he goes.

When you joined the Army when you were very young, you wanted to join the Entertainment Unit and they rejected you. How could they be so wrong?

I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t right at the time, I have no idea. Maybe they were looking for something more like a standup comedian, something light, and I didn’t bring it. Maybe they were just wrong. But on the other hand, I was happy that it happened, because it gave all my way as an artist, as an actor, and then I started in theater, I started to take it seriously, that it’s not to be an actor all of a sudden in an entertainment group.  I think it leads people to the light and less to the profession that is serious, and that is what happened. But it was funny, at the time as a kid I wanted to be an actor, but I was very shy, and I didn’t want to say it. Nowadays everybody says it, they want to be an actor and it’s easy. But when I was young at the time it wasn’t. I was shy to say that I wanted to be an actor. So, I went to these auditions of the entertainment unit without telling anybody. And when they rejected me, I also didn’t share it with anybody. Only years later, after I became an actor I told this story. It was a kind of a dream that I had as a young man, as a teenage boy, as a boy to be an actor, but I didn’t share it with anybody because I thought maybe I was wrong, maybe I don’t belong to this profession.  And when I went to University, I had to take two courses, so I took Theater and Psychology because I wasn’t sure that I really belonged to this profession, so maybe I would have another job that I would love to do, dealing with people. But very fast I learned that I belonged to this profession and I got responses from my teachers and from the audience. Inside myself, I believed in my ability, in my talent. 

You worked on Rambo III long before all this success with The Band’s Visit.

“Rambo III” was shot in Israel mainly. At the time a lot of American productions came to Israel to shoot because the weather is wonderful and there is a variety of scenery.  They were looking for an Afghan guy and they were auditioning probably in the States as well and also in Israel, and they chose me. It was quite an experience for a guy who wasn’t so young, I was 40 at the time, but it was a hell of an experience to be in such an enormous production that I wasn’t used to. And then I traveled to the States to finish shooting and had an encounter with Sylvester Stallone, who was at his highest peak at the time.  I mean it was quite an experience.  And from that, I had been offered other jobs in American productions that were shot in Israel or sometimes in the States.  So it happens, one thing brings the other one and after you do one thing, people, you have a ticket to show the agencies, etc.  It’s easier to sell you.