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Megillas Lester - Behind the Scenes: The Actors
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Get to know the real live actors that are the voices of Lester, Bigsan, Achashverosh, Haman and more!
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
We didn't
necessarily seek out from people or even
Jewish people necessarily for this
project. We were looking for the most
talented and people who are best cast
for these roles. But as it turns out,
the Jewish community has a lot of uh
very very talented actors in it. So we
were able to find just about everybody
in this project is totally Jewish. Can
somebody tell me where I am? I know. I
know. He said that Bashi should be hung
50 almost in the air on the same gallows
built for Morai. I'm playing Sish, who's
one of the two garbage men and uh
attempted assassins or Sish mellows, you
know, like marshmallows but only with
Sish in the beginning. I like Big
Sashion. Also, Carvona who is a sort of
servant to the king and has his own
agenda. Maybe if we hang up the horse 50
almost and then try the Heimlick. Well,
casting Lester was a real trick. So, um
we did a casting call and uh one of our
actors that we had a lot of experience
with when back in the days when we were
working on Mushel Man years ago was
Michael Bahavsky. It's good trivia for
those of you out there who um can try to
figure out which characters Michael
played using.
Do you want to join the easy life? A
life that's truly phrased. Candy over
there. Candy on the stair. Kenny in the
chair. Kenny in the air. I play Lester.
It was a challenge cuz I had to, you
know, I had to change my voice for the
whole thing, which was a little bit a
little bit tough and he's very anxious.
So, I got anxious. But, um, that's what
acting is. I was in character. I just
figured Big Son, you know, could
basically be rendered off me. Um, I'm an
Italian bodybuilder and uh, it was just
a natural natural. I wasn't even acting
to be honest. Don't get too
overconfident, Sesh. I mean, it took me
two months to work out every detail of
the plan. I affectionately call my plan
to kill a vero. Big son actually turns
into an integral character of this
story, which he really isn't a huge
character. He's basically this guy who's
trying to kill the king and gets nailed
for it. Um, but in this story, he just
keeps on trying and keeps on trying to
be, I guess, somebody bigger than he
actually is. I mean, at the end of the
day, in the beginning, he's he's a
garbage man and he's just, you know,
this lowly guard who's, you know, wants
some respect and thinks of himself as so
much more than he actually is. And then,
well, you'll have to watch the movie.
Now, I I found it interesting, you know,
getting into the heritage of uh of what
the Porm story is all about and getting
back to, you know, we have modern day
Jews who are from what essentially is
Persia. Uh and and really tying them
back into the Porm story I found really
cool. I can't believe I ate the whole
pizza. Somebody get in here. I had a
very hard time finding someone in the
acting community who not only was able
to do the Persian accent well, but was
able to do it with the whole from spin
on it. What can I say? It's like there's
a uniqueness to the Iranian accent that
we've come familiar with. Certainly here
in Baltimore where we produced it where
there's a very substantial Iranian
community. Um, you know, I grew up in
Baltimore. My wife grew up in LA. So, we
we always interacted with the Persian
community. It was always like a novelty
for us to to hear it. Um, both on the
Baltimore side and on the LA side. We've
heard and felt the uh the Persian
culture quite a bit um over our lives.
So, we we've been able to impart it. We
had hundreds and hundreds of of of um
auditions that people sent us to do the
Human Voice and they were all over the
map. We had this we had these like uh
Middle Eastern sounding hummons that
were genuinely scary sounding and
truthfully too scary. We needed this to
be a this is a comedy after all.
and we met the incredibly talented Adam
Levventhal who was able to put on this
great voice. I don't know why there's a
little touch of English accent in Hmon,
but who cares? It's just it's just so
much fun to listen to him. I play
Hum. You know, I knew he was evil. Uh I
didn't uh I didn't know he was a barber.
Uh among other things, you don't know if
he was like half British, half, you
know, whatever his accent is. of um it's
been a lot of fun. I like it. Serious
prou misa why not move beyond just one
man. So it's been a really nice cast.
It's a lot of creative people and it's
been a very collaborative process.
People putting in their own ideas and
being creative about how we can sort of
solve problems and work together. So
it's been a very good experience. It's
been fun. It's creatively wonderful. You
have this group of incredibly talented
people. Um, but it's also just so much
fun because we laugh a lot. 20 laps.
Okay, great. That went random. I don't
remember what I
said. Try as close as you can. This is
my first animated anything. Well, it's
nice cuz you can have the script in
front of you, but you know, there's a
freedom. My body can look however it
looks. It just matters what the voice
is. No, I'm not a barber. What is it
with this place? Just get me my drink. I
I would say the lessons that I learned
strongest in my life um definitely
growing up were from children's tapes.
Now that technology has moved in a way
that we can do things on screen. Um
there's a tremendous lack in the
religious community in that there's all
these very very rich and wholesome uh
images that we could put to those
stories. where we're trying to take a
classic story and make it really fun and
accessible. And so hopefully I think
like our show, the idea is that
hopefully kids will enjoy this story and
we'll go back to the text and enjoy that
relationship, see what's changed, what's
the same, which characters they love,
what sticks out to them. Um, it's really
fun and I think the fun part, one of the
great things about being Jewish is we
have these great texts that we can
always come back to. And so I think it's
fun to expose kids to those stories in a
new way, in a creative way. You know, I
grew up in Jewish day school and I do a
lot of musical theater work especially.
Um, and I really always enjoy the chance
to connect back to my roots and get to
do Jewish themed projects. I was in two
different Mushel Man films. Um, I was in
a five-ish video. Um, most of these you
would probably never recognize me in
because every time they promised me I'm
not going to be a clown and every single
time I'm basically a clown or an Italian
like gangster character, which is fun.
Why you say to me or Shushine? This is
not Shushan Sushi Shine. I am Shushan
Sushi Chef. Dude, you're making up your
own words.
You know what I'm hoping is that this
production will actually raise the
production level on all the Jewish
productions. I don't think that there's
any reason why Jewish from content can't
be made in an incredibly professional
way.
[Music]