Arts&Life

celebrity jews

34 | SEPTEMBER 24 • 2020 

AWAY SURPRISE; BINGE THE 
BINGE; AND SOMETHING FUN
I wrote about Away, an original 
Netflix 10-episode series about 
the first space flight to Mars, 
before it premiered on Sept. 4. 
Here’
s some new info. Josh 
Charles, 48, is not one of the 
five spaceship crew members 
as I guessed. He plays Matt, 
a NASA engineer who is the 
husband of Emma, the American 
mission commander (Hilary 
Swank). While Emma is traveling 
to Mars, Matt works with her 
from mission control on Earth. 
I correctly guessed that Mark 
Ivanir, 51, would be a Mars 
crew member. He plays Misha, 
a Russian cosmonaut and engi-
neer. 
Ivanir was born (1968) in the 
Ukraine. His family moved to 
Israel in 1972. It’
s like winning 
the lottery when a character 
actor, like Ivanir, gets a juicy, 
big part in a widely seen series. 
To date, he’
s only had small 
parts in major films (including 
Schindler’
s List) and, until Away, 
no big TV/streaming roles.
In Away episode 6, viewers 
learn about the very surprising 
Jewish background of a crew 
member. Without spoiling it for 
you, I can say there are several 
really cool and really well-writ-
ten “Jewish reveal” flashback 
scenes. Overall, the series is 
uneven, but has still managed to 
get a huge viewing audience. A 
second season is very likely. 
Somehow, I missed the pre-
miere (Aug. 28) of the Hulu orig-
inal teen comedy film The Binge. 
The opening scene explains 
that (a future) America was 
breaking down and that rampant 
substance abuse was a major 
cause. So, all drugs and alcohol 
were banned, except one day a 

year when anyone legally can 
consume all the “bad stuff” they 
want (“the binge”). 
Skylar Gisondo, 24, stars 
as an uptight teen overachiever 
who tries to find an epic binge 
party. The director is Jeremy 
Garelick, 44. Last year, the 
Jewish Foundation of Los 
Angeles profiled Garelick and 
his wife, Samantha, 44ish. 
Growing up, he went to a sub-
urban New York synagogue 
where Samantha’
s father was 
the cantor. The profile noted 
the couple’
s many charitable 
contributions, and how they 
are teaching their four young 
kids to be charitable. Samantha 
summed it up: “It’
s just what we 
do — tzedakah is part of our 
DNA.”
Here’
s an anecdote to make 
you smile in these difficult 
times. On YouTube, I recent-
ly came across a 1970 Dick 
Cavett interview with star actor 
William Holden. Holden told a 
story about Charlton Heston, 
who played Moses in The Ten 
Commandments (1956). Heston, 
Holden said, was dressed up 
as the elderly Moses when 
he met Bob Hope on a studio 
street. Heston told Hope that it 
took hours to put on and take 
off his heavy makeup, which 
included a pasted-on full white 
beard and pasted-on bushy 
white eyebrows. Heston then 
added that he was dying from 
the heat in his heavy robe and 
he was drenched in sweat. Hope 
listened to all this and replied: 
“Well, as I have always said, it’
s 
hard to be a Jew.” 

NATE BLOOM
COLUMNIST

NETFLIX

