Losing My Religion

The incoming cell phone call in the supermarket cereal aisle informed me that I had been cast as a featured extra in the film The Family Rubin directed by Matthew Garrett. His first assistant director happened to be from my last movie, The Greek American, so I had been recommended for the small part in a single scene of the short length movie. For the record, singing Hebrew on film is as challenging as speaking Greek. It almost made me long for the days of filming the Indie movie Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna with a cast and crew who only spoke English when necessary.

The plot of The Family Rubin exposes the seedy underbelly of a Jewish family spiraling to crisis. The set location was the Platt Memorial Chapel in Cherry Hill, NJ. The role called for my mischievous nature to act out of character pious. There I sat on a pew playing a Jewish synagogue worshipper dressed to the nines. Wearing a Yamika beanie over a tailored suit, in cantor rich fashion I sang a few bars of the Shema in Hebrew on camera. I do not know which was more painful to the ear - my singing or my Hebrew. This much is certain, for a film credit I will do just about anything, even change religions.