When was the last time you made an external change? injections? Botox?
"Maybe I will at the age of 60. The change I did make is that I strangely started going to the gym at the age of 40. I started really getting into it about two years ago. Usually it happens the other way around, at the age of 40 people give up their sports routine, but I started and it stuck with me. I have a routine. I run in the gym, do exercises and lift weights, and I walk three or four times a week. It becomes part of my everyday life, and when I don't do sports, my body feels restless and I feel that I have less energy."
"The story where immigrants grow up here and then they are told bye and thrown away frustrates me a lot. I really hope there will be a change here, maybe other people need to lead the country for that to happen."
Alon Friedman, photo: Eric Sultan
When was the last time you fulfilled a dream?
"When I sang on stage in 'Bullets Over Broadway'. As a child I always sang and I'm not that much of a singer. I never did anything with it, until I got to play in a play that's a musical, and for me it's a dream. At the same time, I'm also playing in 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ". I had not seen the play before and I did not know the play, but when we started working on it it changed for me. I entered the world and in rehearsals it was fascinating to me. I am terribly in love with my role. It is a genius play. It deals with despair, and also the way to act within a framework, within rules It is known in advance, when you think your struggle has logic or effect, but we are all in a framework whose rules were written long before us and will not change soon. If we know that we will die - if we really know that - we cannot do anything, so we live in a lack of understanding of this thing. If they (the characters) knew when they would die, they wouldn't do anything. We all act as if it won't happen to us."
When was the last time you were scared?
"I'm not an anxious person, I have anxieties that, for example, the text will be forgotten, that I won't be ready for the show on time, that I'll be called that I forgot a show and I need to be on stage within five minutes. It happened to me once in my life when they actually called and I forgot to come to the show. Luckily I was at home, I lived In Jaffa. I felt like my plane was about to take off and I wasn't on it. But I arrived in time, and the show began."
When was the last time you listened to a particularly helpful piece of advice?
"This month. I heard a conversation on the street that affected me. A rabbi was walking with a full cart followed by someone, it seems to me that it might have been his student, and they were in conversation. 'Pay attention, this is the main thing', and I went with it - someone once told me that the most It's important to pay attention. Pay attention, that's the main thing. This is amazing advice, and if you pay attention things start to work, there is an energy that works. It also hurts us if we ignore - and only if we pay attention to things, including your body, your desires and the people around you , it will help everyone improve, for good communication and health."
When was the last time you missed me?
"Now. I miss Livagne Aryeh, the founder of the Gesher Theater. We are still in shock, it's an untimely death. I miss him very much. For me it's the death of someone close to me, like family. It's not just a person I worked with. He shaped and raised me as an actor in the theater , it's very hard for me without him.
"I also miss playing in the play he directed ('Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead') and we play it, and even being in the theater when he's gone, it's hard. He's been living in New York for the past two years, we didn't see each other every day, but then I could pick up the phone and talk to him and feel that he There, and now we are eight months without him."
When was the last time you felt frustrated by bureaucracy?
"I felt enormous frustration from the story told to me by the creator Nadav Boushem, who wanted me to play him in the play he created, 'You are not a father' (Theatronto, 2022), about his personal story. He and his partner adopted an Eritrean baby, who was abandoned and grew up without supervision. They raised him as a family Foster for almost nine years, they were a family in every way, and one day the welfare authorities came and took him from the school. The principal called to tell him that they took the boy, and they are not allowed to be together since then. It is very cruel and they are in fights, loop and witness from hell, and this is the spectacle that it is He wrote about a legal hell that is going nowhere. They raised him for eight years, and now the boy is with his mother. This story, and the whole thing about immigrants who grow up here and then say bye and throw them away, frustrates me very much. I really hope there will be a change here. Maybe people Others need to lead the country for this to happen."
When was the last time you regretted something?
"We live in Ramat Gan and there are several schools here that are considered excellent, and when our son Max started school I really wanted him to go to a certain school and he wasn't accepted, so I gave up on him. Now that he has started school, I regret that I didn't do everything for him to go there. You Want the best for your child, and now I feel something like a compromise and it's eating me up.
"I am the father I would like to have. We spend a lot of time together. I am a father who likes to take him out of the house, walk in the gardens, go to classes, visit people. I like to do things together and outside. Inside the house he is my partner - they play, build things and have Hamsters and they feed them, I don't even know how many hamsters we have right now. We really want another boy or girl and this is a motivation that requires a lot of money, but we hope for the best. Now we are allowed to have children in Israel with a surrogate, we think it's amazing. I want more A son, although I feel that I would have much more in common with a daughter. Sometimes I say to him: 'Max, do you want to comb a doll?', and he tells me no."
Alon Friedman, 42 years old, actor.
Lives in Ramat Gan with his partner and son.
Studied at Nissan Netiv and joined the Gesher Theater in 2002.
Won the Israeli Theater Award in 2004.
Played on television and in cinema and currently plays in the plays "(R)Evolution", "Odysseus's Voyages" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" at the Gesher Theater, photo: Eric Soltan
When was the last time you were jealous of someone else?
"Yesterday evening I went to see Orit Fox's film, 'Cinema Sabaya', and I envied her that she wrote and directed this stunning film. I can be jealous because I am an actor, and this is my life. This is a very transparent competition, it has no subtext. The solution is not to blame No one, not the cast is to blame and no one else. I have to keep working and not wallow in resentment and jealousy, and it's very difficult because it's in your face all the time. It's a psychological profession, but I don't regret the moment I chose it."
When was the last time you were at a wedding?
"Right now. My partner's niece got married to her partner and it was a very exciting wedding. In 2011 David and I had a wedding ceremony at Joe's and Luz, and many people told us it was the most beautiful wedding they had ever been to. Doesn't annoy me. That it is impossible to get married in Israel. Today, anyone who wants to find their own way, and not everything has to be exactly like the straights."
When was the last time you felt like a stranger?
"All the time. In very simple, everyday situations, I feel like I'm not connected at all. When I go to the post office, for example, I feel like I'm out of place, in the mall, at the bank, in Ramat Gan... I just feel out of place, as if there's some language that needs to be learned and I haven't learned it yet . I refuse to really acclimatize, in all places. I feel like a stranger in this city where I live, and I want to return to Jaffa."
When was the last time you were complimented?
"This month, after the play '(R)evolution' in which I'm acting, someone came up to me and told me that I made him afraid of the future. That means it worked. I'm curious about the future, and I'm very afraid of it, because the world is just going to be one big madness, with the climate , the overcrowding, the water, the floods and the hunger, and the fact that the number of people is increasing and the space is decreasing. It really scares me. This also raises the question of whether to have more children, when this is the world I'm leaving to them. I like to recycle but I feel it's not enough, and it scares me ".
When was the last time you read a review?
"There was a critic who wrote a bad review about me recently and it made me angry, but I reminded myself that it was the opinion of one person, and it happened to be a superficial and unprofessional review and I knew how to treat it properly, and still - it upset me. Usually I'm fine and take criticism quite calmly In this profession, everything is temporary. The last job you did is what you are remembered for, and there is a feeling that actors are hanging on by such a thread, and criticism is a delicate thread. They can shake you without a problem and you have to know how to accept it in proportion. It is part of the profession - there is nothing you can do. You're an actor, you're outside, and you don't sit in front of your computer all day."
When did you first become a father?
"Six and a half years ago in snowy Kathmandu. We arrived there in December, on Christmas Eve, not knowing when our baby would be born. We thought it was a baby at all, that's how unclear things were. When we landed we got into a taxi and in the taxi we received a call that our son had just been born. We went to the hospital to meet him, and it was love at first sight. I really wanted to be a father, and I've been in love with him from the first moment, and since then more and more every day."
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us