A Jewish Saddam Hussein?

Who better to play the role of Saddam Hussein than... Yigal Naor?

When Newsweek reporter Dan Ephron started watching HBO's ongoing series "House of Saddam," he thought the actor playing the 21st century's most famous dictator sounded familiar, a little like his grocer in Israel in fact.

Turns out, Ephron has an ear for Israel. The actor who plays Saddam Hussein is Yigal Naor, an Israeli. One of his co-stars, who plays "Chemical Ali", is Uri Gavriel. With a name like "Uri Gavriel", is there any doubt that he, too, is an Israeli?

New York casting agent Avy Kaufmann reasons that Israel happens to have some phenomenal actors. In addition, Israeli actors are preferred to Arab actors, because their English tends to be better and their acting style is more "Western".

Check out the full Newsweek article here.

And a shout-out to my dad (Mr. Zuz) for passing this along! As he said in the email... We are EVERYWHERE!