If you have a Netflix account, you have most likely heard about the hit TV show “Fauda.”
What you may not know is that the show’s cocreator and lead star, Lior Raz, is not only a skilled actor and screenwriter.
Raz is a man of many talents. He’s been through so many different experiences in his life, it’s enough to write an enthralling script about.
Here is ISRAEL21c’s list of 14 things you probably didn’t know about Lior Raz.
1. Arab roots
In “Fauda,” Raz’s character, Doron, often dialogues in Arabic as an undercover operative.
Raz didn’t have to learn the language specifically for the role. In fact, he grew up speaking Arabic at home. Both his parents are Mizrachi (Eastern/African) Jews. His mother immigrated to Israel from Algeria, while his father made aliyah from Iraq.
2. Tragic love
In 1990, when Raz was 19, his girlfriend of three years, Iris Azulay, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem. The murderer was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas that saw soldier Gilat Shalit released from a five-year captivity in Gaza.
3. Military service
That personal tragedy may have played a part in Raz becoming a commando in the elite undercover counter-terrorism unit, Sayeret Duvdevan, during his IDF service.
His experiences in the undercover unit would eventually inspire Raz to create “Fauda,” which tells the story of Mista’arvim forces, which encompass all elite undercover units, including Duvdevan.
4. Terminator’s bodyguard
After completing his military service in 1993, Raz was hired by a security contracting firm to be the bodyguard of Hollywood’s biggest star at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Raz later described the job as “the most glamorous thing.”
5. Theater past
Inspired by his time with Schwarzenegger, Raz returned to Israel in 1995 and enrolled in the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Tel Aviv. He went on to act in a number of famed theater productions, including Molière’s “Don Juan” and William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
6. When life imitates art
After years of working as an actor in theater and television, in 2014 Raz cocreated “Fauda” with a veteran Israeli journalist Avi Issacharov, who specializes in Palestinian affairs.
The two have known each other since they were 16, and served together in Sayeret Duvdevan.
7. The October 7 attacks
In June, it was announced that Raz and Issacharoff were tapped by Leviathan Productions to write a script for a film that would detail the events of the October 7 Hamas attacks, in which over 1,200 people were killed, and more than 300 were taken hostage.
The script will focus on retired IDF general Noam Tibon, who saved his son, journalist Amir Tibon, and his two granddaughters from an inferno in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.
8. Reserve duty
The age of mandatory military reservist duty in Israel clocks off at 46, depending on which unit you serve in. Raz, at 52, is no longer required to serve in the reserves.
Yet following the October 7 attacks, Raz enlisted as a volunteer, joining the “Brothers in Arms,” an alliance of reservists who originally formed to oppose the government’s judicial reform plan, and then helped families near the Gaza border.
Accompanied by Yohanan Plesner @yplesner and Avi @issacharoff , I headed down south to join hundreds of brave "brothers in arms" volunteers who worked tirelessly to assist the population in the south of Israel. We were sent to the bombarded town of Sderot to extract 2 families pic.twitter.com/WpM9JLeOZM
— Lior Raz (@lioraz) October 9, 2023
It’s not the first time he has helped out in an emergency. In 2020, he helped prepare food packages for those in need during the Covid lockdowns.
9. ‘Fauda’ is not where it all began
In an interview a year ago, Raz said that “Fauda” was not the first show he had created. In fact, he wrote an unspecified number of scripts and pitches in the past, which all failed.
“The audience only sees the successes, but I am full of failures; I fail everyday,” he said, urging people not to give up on something they really want to do in life.
10. Tattoo aficionado
Raz is a big fan of body art, boasting 30 tattoos on various parts of his body. Among them are an image of a Samurai and the birthdate of his murdered girlfriend.
11. PTSD
Raz has admitted to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following his intense military service.
He told the New Yorker magazine in 2017: “You realize you are tense all the time, stressed, you aren’t sleeping, you’re on edge, always on alert. I was giving a lecture the other day at some high-tech firm and I clicked the clicker for a snippet of a film about ‘Fauda’ and just the sound of the show — the gunfire — set me off. I was suddenly so stressed. I was immediately looking for the door. We live in a post-traumatic society, all of us.”
12. Working with Dustin Hoffman
A few months ago, it was announced that Raz was set to star alongside legendary Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman in a crime thriller “Tuner.” The feature’s impressive cast also includes two-time Emmy nominee Tovah Feldshuh, a Jewish Broadway star, and Leo Woodall of “The White Lotus” fame.
The film “tells the story of a talented piano tuner whose life is turned upside down when he discovers that his meticulous skills for tuning pianos can equally be applied to cracking safes.”
13. Big in Arabia
Thanks to his involvement with “Fauda,” Raz has accumulated a large following on social media, including many followers from the Arab world.
In fact, when the fourth season of “Fauda” debuted on Netflix in January 2023, it hit number one in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. It ranked second in Qatar, and was among the top 10 most-viewed Netflix shows in Turkey, Morocco and Jordan.
14. He’s a Gladiator and he met King Charles
Raz starred in the highly anticipated Ridley Scott sequel to 2000 award-winning film “Gladiator,” alongside British actor Paul Mescal.
“Gladiator II” picks up years after the original film and was released worldwide on November 22. Raz was a convincing pick to play Viggo, a trainer of gladiators, but to be honest, he deserved a much bigger role.
Apparently Ridley Scott, the director of Gladiator II, thought the same, according to an interview with Raz in Kveller, where he said he was accepted to the role without audition, and Ridley – who is clearly a fan of Fauda – apologized that the role was so small.
At the premiere of the film in London, Raz and his wife (also an actor), Meital Berdah, got to share a few words with King Charles, and even shook his hand.
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