Music video for the song "Password" performed by Alon Abutbul;
Musical arrangement and production: Gil "Gilbert" Broyd and Gabriel Broyd;
Voices: Elia Abutbul and Uri Abutbul/Director: Alon Abutbul;
Editing: Alon Abutbul, Uri Abutbul and Rudy Jung Botami;
Photographer: Francois Bothami, Simulacra Studio;
Production: Sheeran Mostboy
I don't usually share the behind-the-scenes of preparing articles and interviews, but the way the interview with Alon Abutbul came about is a little unusual and teaches something about the different sides that live side by side within this huge actor.
A week ago (on March 7), Abutbol uploaded a video to the networks in which he is photographed with the Oscar-winning Hollywood star John White, who is also known as Angelina Jolie's father.
While White warmly embraces Abbotbol, he is engaged in the promotion of Abbotbol's musical show that will take place tomorrow (Friday) in Zucker Hall of the Culture Hall, as part of the "Winter Sounds" festival.
After White gave Abutbol compliments and, among other things, described him as an "icon", he added: "And he's also a musician! A singer! And he's going to have a show and I recommend him because he's an amazing person! You'll enjoy the show!".
Abutbol added a few words above the video: "When the signature doesn't indicate his pulp, he brings friends."
Out of curiosity to know if John White, who is known as an ardent supporter of Israel, is now back in Israel, I contacted Abbotbol with this question.
He replied to me that White is not in Israel but told me how White himself suggested that he shoot a video to promote Abbotbol's appearance in Tel Aviv.
"I didn't let the world know about this show enough because of my mood, but I invite you to my show, will you come?", he asked and added: "I wish even more people knew about this show."
This story not only indicates what an accessible and sensitive person Alon Abutbul is, but mainly illustrates the gap between the two current hats in Abutbul's life: on the one hand, a veteran and successful actor who is able to recruit a major movie star in Hollywood to film a promo for his appearance;
And on the other hand, a beginner singer who has trouble recruiting an audience to come see him in concert.
Or as he himself says: you know he can't cook, but you don't really know he sings.
Managed to recruit Hollywood star John White - but struggles to recruit an audience.
Alon Abutbol/Reuven Castro
"Last week they told me: 'We're canceling the show, we didn't sell enough tickets.' There are constraints and reasons for this not to happen, and I insist on the yes"
Alon, what do you get from the music that the game doesn't give you?
"First of all, the option of getting to the halls is very immediate - and you're always with other people. For me it's an act of love. Many times, both in the current album and in the next album, you come to the studio in the morning and in the evening a song comes out. It's always related to who I'm working with and what kind of human encounter there is To us. Nitzan Zaira (the owner of Nene Disk - Sab) told me many years ago that a singer needs to be believed, that's how it's measured.
I think they believe me.
I think the honor of the game is in its place, I've done it for many years, I'll continue to do it, but there's something close and exposed in singing."
After 40 years of a successful and highly regarded acting career, Abutbol surprised last year when he released his debut album "Family Business". He created the album with his daughter Elia and with the members of the band "The White Mask" (Gilbert Broyd and Gabriel Broyd), who produced music with the help of electronic touches and magic powder. Abutbol was also responsible for the singles and album covers, which he painted. The two singles that came out of it, "PASSWORD" and "Tamid Along the coast", aroused curiosity but still did not sweep away the masses. Tomorrow (Friday) as mentioned, there will be a special show by Abbotbol following the album as part of the "Winter Sounds" festival.
The song that ends the album is "Empty", and Abbotbol says in it between The rest: “When you come to an empty place/ Nectar, don't bark/ Don't make waves/ Fall apart/ Into a thousand pieces.” “There's really no such thing, Rick.
When you arrive at an empty place - it is already full.
It's a paradox," says Abbotbol. "But this song is about our ability to observe, not to jump, to stop for a second, to look and aim, to be comfortable.
This song is about many things but also about women because I likened a womb to a seemingly empty place, which we men fill.
And I say, when you come to an empty place, when you come in front of a woman, take a good look.
'When you come to an empty place/ look at it/ study it/ lest you be filled/ if you come to a place/ you can find your heart there'.
It's a lot about our perspective and not about the events that happen."
I'm not sure I understood: Are you claiming that a woman herself has something empty - that a man fills? Or is a woman meant to fill the void in your heart?
"In the symbols of masculinity and femininity, in symbolism, then the man fills the womb.
This idea of a womb, which is empty, and you fill it.
So pay close attention to what you fill it with."
What endpoints in your life have you reached with your emptiness and broken into a thousand pieces?
"On the seventh of October, like everyone else, when my brother died, when my father died, when my mother died.
These were endpoints, wow, how do we continue from here?"
"On October 7, my late father was supposed to be 100 years old. Now we will remember him all the time." Alon Abutbul/Reuven Castro
You mentioned the seventh of October.
Before the performance tomorrow, you wrote on your Facebook page: "Going on stage, at this time, nothing is really certain, sometimes it seems like a hallucination."
Please tell me more about this feeling.
"This thing is hard. For two months I hid and couldn't speak. I couldn't open my mouth and say anything. I was so confused. But you know, the show must go on. You do it. You can't not do it. It's another paradox . You go on and you do and it goes with me all the time somewhere. I really don't know what will happen in meeting the audience. We will do the show the best we can. I always say that when I come to a show I really come, I come to meet the audience. Obviously we Different from what we were, and I have no idea what will happen in that sense. I will come, clean myself and empty myself. Being empty is not only a difficult place, it is also a nice place. It is to say, you can break up, you can disperse. We are molecules after all. We are nothing moving It's a reminder that it's possible. We're moving forward. And I think we've received a great lesson in modesty. Besides, what a piece, if my father had been alive, last October 7 he would have been 100 years old. I thought, now we'll remember you all the time, even though we remember anyway. I love my dead. I know they're waiting for me. I was just thinking of writing a post: 'My mom and dad are coming to the concert. Will you come?'"
And if we talk about the dead, yesterday (Tuesday) it was exactly 20 years since the death of Natan Yonatan.
Jonathan's song "Always along the coast" is the only song on your album that is not original.
Who is Nathan Jonathan to you and what does this song mean to you?
"I met the poet Natan Yonatan in my twenties, when I was a young star, and I had the opportunity to be at all kinds of poetry reading evenings. The thing that came to my mind when I read his poems was the death of his son. 'Where do you get strength from? / Start swimming now' are some of the words of the song 'Always along the shore', for me it's about someone who wants to die already and has no more strength. I accompanied my brother, Avraham, to his death, so suddenly I was interested in the matter of the al-Tamidim versus sometimes in the lyrics of the song: 'Always along the shore/ sometimes water sometimes sand/ Always winds / bloom salty sea breezes.''
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Holds a "family business" performance - but his daughter who was part of the piece will not go on stage.
Alon Abutbul and his daughter Elia/courtesy of those photographed, from Alon Abutbul's private album
"The relationship ended after 25 years. We love our family very much and we love each other, but we don't want to be a couple. So we found a solution that is strange, even for us, but it is softer, and the family is satisfied, the children are satisfied, I am satisfied and Shir is satisfied. We not ashamed of it"
Working on this project, which is called "Family Business", when you enter the recording studio and when you go on stage, how much do you miss your brother, the late musician Avraham, by your side?
"He is missing.
He is the engine.
If Avraham was with us, I doubt I would have done it, because it was his domain.
At most I would do a song here and there.
It's strange, in the last few days I feel like I'm following in his footsteps, and it's the most unexpected.
The music does not leave me and I do not leave it, I manage to write songs with many words in Hebrew and English.
There is a continuation, I am now working on another album with Yuval Havkin, 'Rejoyser'.
I'm learning a lot about music and it's a big surprise for me."
The album, as mentioned, was created by Abutbul in collaboration with his daughter Elia, who also sings alongside him. The musical connection between them took place more than 15 years ago, at a guitar festival initiated by Abutbul, as an amateur guitar player." She was seven years old at the time and one day she said to me, I'm coming up to the opening with you and I want to do a song, 'Oh Don Quixote' ('It's all for you') by Danny Sanderson.
I told her, well, fine.
She dedicated this song as a birthday present to her classmate.
After years she told me, I just wanted to sing and I just came up with a reason."
Although she participated in the recording of the album and followed him on stage with her father, for tomorrow's performance she will not attend. "She has returned to study visual arts at UCLA University, she does what she wants and I stand and wonder." says Abutbul.
And does it bother you that you have to fight to buy tickets for the concert?
"I think the album is stunning and the concert went to stunning places.
That's why I didn't agree to give up this show, which was supposed to be on February 4th and then it was postponed and then it was impossible to bring everyone and it was so difficult.
Last week, on Wednesday, they told me: 'We are canceling the show.'
I asked, 'Why?
What is?'.
They told me, 'They didn't sell enough tickets.
You don't advertise'.
At first I let go, I said 'okay'.
Then my friend said to me, 'They annoy me.'
It's not in my world to cancel a show.
I appeared in front of six people.
The next day we came to our senses and said, we will bring the people, don't worry.
We will kill ourselves for it.
And suddenly you contacted me.
"Since the seventh of October, I have no idea about anything, and this project could have been canceled so many times," adds Abutbol, "but I have a rule that I say: the more you are told no - the more you insist on it. Time has reasons for this not to happen, and I insist on it."
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She did not agree that he would bring a new partner home.
Alon Abutbul and Shir Biliya, winners of "The Winning Kitchen VIP"/Keshet 12
Alon Abutbul in the "VIP winning kitchen"/Keshet 12
"I wrote the song 'Empty' about women because I imagined a womb to be an empty place, which we men fill. I say, when you come to an empty place, when you come in front of a woman, pay close attention to what you fill her with."
While you are a megastar actor, the general public is yet to know you as a singer.
How important is it to you that this happens?
Do you want to be a rockstar?
Or are you doing it for the soul?
"It's important to me that the audience knows, we did a very beautiful thing. I don't want to be a rock star. When I realized what was going on, for me it was generally a place to move back, to give space to others - to Gabriel, Gilbert and Alia. But everyone pushed me to lead it, because of how sales Things today. But by and large it's an ensemble record, there's a song on it that everyone sings. The next record will develop somewhere else and is surprising. I don't know if I'll be a rock star there, but I'll be a singer. I do things there alone. For me it's always a life journey. Once upon a time Berry Sakharof He told me, making an album takes two weeks. But you do it in five years, because it's a piece of life. There's something in art that happens over time, that you commit to something and this thing gives you and hopefully the environment as well - a piece of life. I'm a beginning singer, it's the best It's true to say. It's a business that's really new to me, music, I'm learning all the time."
There were people who found a similarity between your body language and dance movements in your performances as a singer - with those of Yuval Banai, a singer from Shina.
"I'm constantly compared to him, even when I'm just walking down the street. He's great, Yuval Banai, he's cute, stunning, a wonderful rock star. I didn't think about it, that's how I am. I go on stage with two flashlights, at a concert I light up the stage, I The light too. And I'm a dancer. But leave you with dance moves, even on the street they tell me 'Yuval, Yuval, Yuval'."
Reviews of the musical phase in Abutbol's life are mixed.
Thus, for example, Ben Shalev wrote in Ha'aretz, about his show in July at the Barbie: "Abutbol's stage performance was professional and full of grace, but not always relaxed and not completely original (...) They felt that Abutbol did not get into the role until the end. Maybe he is still not enough Confident in himself within a musical context."
I mention the review to Abbotbol and he says: "First of all, it was the first time we were on stage. For me, it was the first dress rehearsal. Then we improved. As long as there is room to improve and where to strive - it's fine. The journey continues. You can ask, at my age Do you need it? And here it happened. And here it takes me. You have to remember to tell his son that in the third grade I was thrown out of the choir. They said, this - nothing will come of it. So for me, the fact that I'm singing - it's a hallucination."
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Alon Abutbol in the film "The Dark Knight Rises" directed by Christopher Nolan/screenshot, screenshot
"I do what I do. A friend once told me - whoever loves you, will love you. Criticism is not my engine. I don't live the world by reviews or by what people say. I stay with my feet on the ground"
One of the first criticisms of you as an actor in the press - was short and fatal.
In the headline in October 1983, they wrote about the show "On Caviar and People": "There is also one young man in love, Alon Abutbul, who is not clear how he got to the stage."
I thought that if you were too crushed by harsh criticism at the beginning of your journey, maybe we wouldn't have accepted one of Israel's greatest players.
"I do what I do. A friend once told me - whoever loves you, will love you. Criticism is not my engine. I don't live the world by reviews or by what people say. I stay with my feet on the ground. But if I hear In reviewing things that resonate with me - it's a gift."
Since bursting into our lives at the age of 21 in the movie "Two Fingers from Sidon", Alon has become a milestone in cinema, theater and television, and also one of the most successful Israeli actors in Hollywood.
He lives in the United States, and throughout his career has worked with many huge directors including Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan.
The interview with Abutbol took place the day after the Oscar broadcast.
Abutbol, it turns out to me, did not know of its existence at all.
After I update him on the uproar that arose around the speech of the British-Jewish director Jonathan Glaser who said that Israel uses the Holocaust to justify the occupation, he said: "Glaser wants to sell his film and be talked about, and he does what he thinks is right. We are only artists. That's fine To create an internal compass, that you believe in something and go for it. But he's doing PR, come on, it's Oscar. It's complicated, especially with all this Hollywood. This ceremony is far from me, except that I liked the cute and charming Guy Nativ."
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"Glaser wants to sell his film and be talked about. He's doing PR."
Jonathan Glazer with the Oscars/GettyImages, Arturo Holmes
Alon Abutbul at the Ophir Awards 2018/Liron Moldovan
In this period do you feel less comfortable now in Los Angeles?
Would you want your children to live there?
"As for my children, I think that reality happens. I have educated them and me, that no matter what happens in reality and what glasses you wear. And whatever they decide, where to be and what to do, especially as young people shaping their lives that it is important for them to say who they are and what they are, I I trust them completely. They find their own way. Things you see from here you don't see from there, and even what you see from there is not the easiest now. It is what it is. With what glasses and in what form will we accept it and act with it? Everyone with their own glasses."
If you could elaborate on what life is like in the United States during this period, against the background of the war and the current government.
"Listen, it's not pleasant with all the anti-Semitism and all that stuff. An Israeli person who suddenly finds himself in a situation, and you explain now. Everything gets mixed up. So I say, a person has to find his place, how he behaves in the midst of a turbulent reality. And I think that my children They are doing a good job. They are finding their place."
Christopher Nolan became the big winner at the last Oscar ceremony following his film "Oppenheimer".
You starred in his movie "The Dark Knight Rises".
What do you remember about him and what is the secret of his genius?
"I think Nolan knows what he wants and knows what he's doing. He doesn't have the so-called 'Video village' (the director's monitor area - Shab), no one sees what the camera is recording except him with some tiny monitor.
As a creator, he deals a lot with time, with really high art, and tries to limit it to formats that are sometimes more Hollywood and sometimes less Hollywood.
He knows how to work on a huge scale, that was my experience, everything was huge.
My favorite movie of his is 'Dunkirk'.
In his film you don't know where you are.
He manages to make the viewer change place.
He moves your mind.
He connects very strongly to me, as a viewer, with the fact that a film is a dream consciousness, you don't understand what is going on and you are sent to it.
He plays a very strong medium.
He takes good players and gives them space.
He doesn't work with the player too much, but prepares the area for him to enter, and the player does his job."
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"My balloon was blown up in 'A wonderful country'. Nice, funny, I enjoyed it."
Alon Abutbol/Reuven Castro
"I didn't sting Ruthie Brodu. There are directors and there are editors. When she spoke to me unkindly, I just said, 'Ruty, please, speak to me nicely, we don't know each other.' "
Abutbol integrated his family not only in his musical project called "Family Business", but also in the reality show "The Winning Kitchen VIP" of Keshet 12, which he won at the end of last month with the director Shir Biliya, the mother of his four children.
Biliya was his partner and today he defines them as "Pharisees" - a term that combines the words separated and divorced.
The Pharisee couple revealed their special relationship in the show.
They said that even after they became "Pharisees" they remained good friends living in the same house, in two different parts of it, and running the same financial cell.
However, they are no longer in a relationship.
Shir said in the program that she would not agree to Alon bringing a partner home.
Why did you actually break up and what is the structure of your relationship now?
"It happened because it's over, after 25 years. We love our family very much and we love each other, but we don't want to be a couple. So we found a solution that's strange, even for us, but it's softer, and the family is satisfied, the children are satisfied, I'm satisfied And a satisfied song. When they came from 'The Winning Insurer' it was clear that we would tell about it with fun, we're not ashamed of it or anything. I'm not ashamed of anything."
Abutbul declined to share whether he has a partner these days.
Isn't it a shame that you are known now mainly as a reality star and not as a movie actor?
"First of all, I told my partner, and she's delighted, and more importantly, it's at the top of the pyramid. I knew she cooks well and it would be fun. I think I also had a lot of fun on reality TV. I didn't know it would be like this. It mixed three things for me: one thing is my love for cameras And the knowledge I gained in this world; second thing is people. Reality is all about people. You can talk, be and be present; and third thing, it's a game. Just a game. Nothing serious there and not really."
Above the screen you seemed to have a love-hate relationship with Ruthie Brodeau.
She stung you and you stung her.
"No, no, no. I didn't sting her. There are directors and there is editing. There was none of that. There was only laughter. And really when she spoke to me badly I just said, 'Ruthy please, speak to me nicely, we don't know each other'. But It's not about biting. I wanted to tell her that when I'm spoken to in a bad way, I walk away. Then they did it for reasons, rightly for them. They did a good job. There is nothing between Ruthie Brodo and me, and there never will be."
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"How do you age in the coolest way?".
Alon Abutbol/Reuven Castro
"I've always been someone who doesn't regret anything. Now I regret so many things. I did all kinds of things to my face. For example, I yelled at the children sometimes. How stupid that is. God forbid. Regret makes me stronger"
Along with viewers who liked you on the screen, you received all kinds of comments that claimed you were a clown and quoted too many philosophers.
Can you understand the viewers who were put off by your character?
"I say, everyone puts on their glasses. I agreed to come and let the show shape how I would go out. From that moment on, everyone can say what they want. It's really not my business. Besides, the messages I had - passed: that people will love themselves, that they will not let people speak badly to them, that they will get up in the morning and decide that they are lifting up this day, that they are illuminating, and not sinking into this or that black bile. They put it to various uses. I can only congratulate the editors of the program that they know their job, But the messages reached the people. I'm not interested in being controversial or not controversial. I am me, and I agree to be in the game, with love and laughter. It's the viewers', it's not mine. I really enjoyed my impersonation done by Lior (Ashkenazi, in the Great Land ' - Shab).
So blow up this balloon, I said ok, funny, I enjoyed watching the program by God."
Along with working on a second album, the next television project for which Abutbol is filming these days is the sketch series "Universes" on Khan 11, which began as a network series by Roi Kafri and Gon Ben Ari and Amora to come up later this year. "What a rural shepherd man, what a hallucination, what a beauty," says Abutbul, "it's so delusional.
I have a text that I say to Yael Abkasis: look at the script, it says Yehuda Levy, Yehuda Levy, Yehuda Levy.
The other pages are blank.
On page 24 to 37 there is a score of a song.
It's so funny.
I don't fully understand it, but he's smart and it makes me laugh and it's different."
What do you regret?
"I regret so many things.
I am in the period of regrets.
Maybe an album will come out of it.
I've always been one to not regret anything.
And now I feel like I've been through and I can get frustrated, and I see how I behaved here, and what I did here.
It's not at the level of beating for a sin, but I have an experience of regret and this experience empowers me to be a better person.
Not in the sense of sitting on it and digging for myself.
But yes, I did all kinds of things on my face.
For example, I yelled at the kids sometimes.
How stupid is that.
God forbid.
And then after you yelled, you say, well, moving forward in life, they will learn, I am their father.
But then you say: wait, no.
I will watch what I say.
And I won't shout.
This is really my inner work."
When you celebrated your 50th birthday, we celebrated you at Vala with an interview in which many big screen stars asked you questions. And soon, in a year or so, you will already be 60 years old. What is the most poignant question you ask yourself just before that age?
"I will ask Myself: How do you age in the coolest way?
My answer to myself: Judaism says that the question is more important than the answers.
I will find answers along the way - exercise, make love, eat healthy - and create."
More on the same topic:
Alon Abutbul
The winning kitchen
Christopher Nolan
antisemitism