I appreciate the gift called Niro Levi much more now
Rehabilitation from the car accident is still ongoing, but he has learned to live with the limitations. He separated from his partner who is 30 years his junior, but it suddenly turns out that it's not the end of the story. Niro Levi is already preparing for the new comedy play at Habima, "The Duck," and in the meantime clarifies that he has no idea why he was not cast in Adir Miller's new series.
Nir (Niro) Levi tried until recently to avoid social networks, but about a year and a half ago, the 58-year-old actor realized there was no choice, surrendered, and fell into TikTok. "I was fed up with hearing all the time how I am no longer relevant because I don't create content on the networks and I don't have followers," he says. "It doesn't matter how much reputation you have and how many important things you've done, the world has changed. Any upstart bypasses you, picks up campaigns, and leaves you in the dust. I said to myself, 'Niro, wake up! That's it, I'm reinventing myself.'" It worked, and within four months, Levi had 30,000 followers. "I turned the lemon into lemonade, two days ago I uploaded a video that exploded with 150,000 views," he says. "Francis Ford Coppola said in 1990 that the day everyone holds a camera in their hand, they will be both the director and the actor, and essentially be able to do everything alone. He saw the future."
"Ramzor" was soccer, and I wanted to bring the cup
Levi is closing three decades of work in television, cinema, and theater. It is very important to him to be an active and working actor, especially after he was seriously injured in a car accident in the summer of 2022. "I work full-time," he says. "I love my profession very much and I'm not bad at it at all, so I think it's a kind of commandment and destiny. I am in a profession that chose me, I cannot do anything else."
His television record goes back to series that became iconic back in the nineties, such as "Hafooch," "Mishak HaChaim," "Michaela," and "HaAlufa" — but of course, Levi's biggest and most memorable role is Hefer, our brother-in-law from Adir Miller's "Ramzor," which aired on Keshet 12 in 2008-2014. "What's beautiful is that this whole series was four seasons, but on the street, they still talk about it," says Levi. "The audience doesn't always know how to put their finger on what works for them, but you don't argue with facts, and the fact is that the street misses 'Ramzor.'"
What was different there? It was a collection of things that worked in perfect synergy. Like in soccer, when you see in a game that everything works, a series is also a team game. I treated the fourth season as the Champions League, I arrived at it very satisfied because the role grew significantly. For the first time after three seasons, I also made a decent living. In this season, I wanted to bring the cup.
Despite the success, Levi did not return to act in the subsequent series created by Miller, "Tzomet Miller" and the comedy-drama "Reset" which aired this year on Keshet 12 — and in which Lior Halfon, the third side of Miller and Levi's triangle from "Ramzor," did participate.
When was the last time you spoke with Adir?
"We are not friends in the sense of talking daily, we are work friends and respect each other very much. The last time I spoke to him was over half a year ago, I had an idea for something and I called him to check options. It didn't ripen, and then his series 'Reset' came out."
Did you watch the series?
"I saw one episode, it was really good and funny in my opinion."
Were you surprised you weren't invited to participate?
"No. And I also don't have an explanation for that, because I am not the address for that question."
Lior Halfon was there. Did that arouse a sense of missed opportunity in you?
"No. I am happy for them, I love both Lior and Adir."
And how much are you in contact with Lior Halfon today?
"We are not in contact. I don't have many actor friends."
Did you ever ask Adir why you aren't there?
"No."
If tomorrow Adir calls and tells you he wrote a role for you, do you say yes immediately?
"Yes, that would be excellent."
When asked if the industry knows how to take care of its veteran actors, Levi is less forgiving: "I got to work with the greatest ones we grew up on, and I saw how the system treats them. Bottom line, if you don't take care of yourself — you won't have a way to live. After an actor passes away, everyone puts a crown on his head, but that doesn't mean he had anything to live on if he didn't take care of himself. There is no shortage of examples: Ze'ev Revach, Yosef Shiloach, and more. Everyone has peaks, surviving in the profession is something else. Maybe that's why I don't get excited about peaks like I used to, and I don't get excited about falls either. I learned to contain it."
All made of iron, like Iron Man
With all due respect to "Ramzor," the event that affected Levi more than anything, which he calls the game-changer of his life, was the car accident he went through four years ago. He was riding a motorcycle on Namir Street in Tel Aviv when a van that passed a red light hit him and injured him severely; Levi was evacuated to Ichilov with multi-system trauma, operated on, and his condition stabilized. According to him, he is still dealing with the injury to this day, but refuses to surrender to it. "I am the definition of a medical miracle. From the moment I understood the scale of the injury, I denied it in order to recover."
How does your body feel today?
"This accident screwed me up, but there is a big gap between what is happening to me on a physical level and what I project. Physically I am a disabled person, and before the accident, I was a hundred out of a hundred."
Levi rolls up the right leg of the shorts he is wearing, and reveals a huge scar along his entire thigh. "My main artery was damaged," he explains. "I have iron in my thigh, in my pelvis. I am all iron, like Iron Man. Twice a week I am in physical therapy, the rehabilitation never ends. Ten months ago I had a regression in the injury, I was completely paralyzed again. Today I understand how important health is. We are nothing without it."
But when we walked to the cafe, it seemed that you were walking normally and that everything was fine.
"I drag a leg, but you didn't notice because I'm a good actor. I walk with very high awareness. But that doesn't change the fact that my working tools were damaged."
How was it for an actor with a crushed body?
"At first, I went to rehearsals with crutches to see if the brain works, because I had total brain fog. I prefer not to talk about the falls because it makes me fall lower, and therefore I project strength all the time. One day a Breslov Hasid told me at an intersection: 'You are a righteous man, you are Mr. World.' I asked, 'Why?'. He pointed to my jaw and said, 'Mr. World is someone who manages to lift these smile muscles.' That's how I am, smiling even when it hurts."
Were there moments you were afraid you wouldn't hold up again as an actor, that you wouldn't return to the stage?
"What a question. This is one of the reasons I hurried to return with crutches to the stage. Today, with all the pains I have, I travel two hours in a shuttle to a performance. This is the profession, I wish myself to grow old in a shuttle to a performance. Like that, until age 90, with pleasure."
Did you receive assistance from the state?
"Forget it, the state helps. The processes with it are very slow, and one must not forget that my accident happened in parallel to the accident that happened to the country."
Did you watch the videos documenting the accident?
"No, and it doesn't interest me. I am not willing to deal with the trauma. I insist on being healthy, thinking healthy, and looking healthy. In general, I appreciate the gift called Niro Levi much more now. Nothing is taken for granted, and thanks to Mom and Dad for the wonderful genes."
Did the accident also change your character?
"Also. I am more patient, I love people more. Many ask me what I felt when I was sedated and ventilated in intensive care for two weeks. I answer them: the dead are dead, and whoever remains suffers. I have many questions and many matters without an answer on this subject, but that is also okay. Not everything has an answer."
I am an actor who understands the point
In recent months, Levi has been participating in several projects simultaneously: he is filming two new movies, and in a few weeks, the play "The Duck" will go up at Habima with his participation. "The Duck" is a comedy written and directed by Ofek Levi; at its center are two Nazi soldiers and a Jewish prisoner, played by Levi, who tries to escape from them while insisting that he is actually a duck. Ofek Levi is only 25 years old, and already an award-winning playwright. But after so many years in the profession, Levi is not intimidated by working with a young director anyway.
"True, I have plenty of flight hours as an actor and a lot of experience, but it's fun to work with young and less experienced directors too," he reassures. "It's easy for them with me because I am an actor who understands the point, and in most cases, it fits like a glove."
Still, Ofek is more than three decades younger than you. What do rehearsals with a 25-year-old director look like?
"Do you believe me that until you mentioned it just now, I didn't relate to it at all? On the contrary, it's a winning combination in my opinion. The young ones are constantly reinventing themselves, in contrast, I come with my experience and with the entire rich record. I am happy that someone brings the spirit of youth and fresh ambition. I also learned from those older than me, but part of a person's progress is not to tread in place and not to go back — which means working with young, good, and talented people better than me."
With such age gaps, is there no ego?
"I try to moderate it and understand the situation. Even when I am given feedback, I accept it with love, after all, I always have something to learn."
Were there moments when you told Ofek that you would have done things differently?
"I completely share with him if I think something should be different. To be precise, I suggest or state my opinion. Sometimes it's in place, and sometimes his opinion is decisive. I see his age as an advantage. There is something very kicking, innovative, and different in him. For example, the song 'Chai' by Ofra Haza is included in the play, only they sing it in the play 'Frei, frei, frei' (in German: free, free, free). It is a surrealistic and comedic play, and also very contemporary, even though it takes place during World War II. Although it is about Nazi soldiers, the viewer can make a parallel to our days and see them also as soldiers in Gaza. Ultimately, the play deals with the question 'what is it to be a human being,' when the uniform is just a layer that examines what kind of human being it makes you. It is very prominent in the play because the two Nazi soldiers are completely different in character from each other, even though they are both dressed in the same uniform."
This is a small play relative to the dimensions of the actor you are.
"It doesn't matter. I am hungry for work all the time, I don't like to be idle. The theater is the bread and butter of the actor. It is so important to me that not long ago I acted in an exercise of a company that finished a master's degree in directing at Tel Aviv University. It was only an exercise and the audience was in shock that it was me on stage, but it is a very impressive scene and I did it with pleasure and pure love for the profession."
Yarin came to have some fun with the boyfriend in the country
Levi is known as a stormy type, and his personal life has always been under extensive coverage. He has two children from his first marriage, but his most known and remembered relationship is the one with the model Karin Cohen, to whom he was married for almost two years. According to the gossip columns, Levi recently returned to his ex, Yarin Hevi, a medical student who is 30 years his junior. The two met at the hospital when he was hospitalized, and separated less than a year ago after three years of relationship.
But, is it true that you returned?
"Yarin is studying medicine in Lithuania and she is currently on vacation, so she came to have some fun with the boyfriend in the country. Then she returns to studies."
What does that mean? Is she staying with you?
"Yes."
Does that mean you are together?
"As long as Yarin is in the country, she is with me and we are together."
Do you love her?
"I am crazy about her. She is a very special woman with a very special character."
What caused you to give the relationship another chance?
"I love her. I had quite a few stunning girlfriends that I missed, because I wasn't in the right place. Today I appreciate a good woman. When one like that falls on you, you understand how special and rare she is."
Does the age gap between you occupy you too, or mainly the environment?
"Only the environment, between us it is not felt. In this specific case, the age gap is not expressed in the intellectual aspect, but I completely understand that love at age 28 is not the same love as at age 40."
In what is it expressed, she wants to go out every evening and you have no strength?
"In our case, it's the opposite. Actually, I want to go out and she less."
Women always loved me. Like many other Israeli actors, in his distant past, Levi also wanted to fulfill the Hollywood dream, but folded and returned to the country quite quickly. "I was a discharged fighter, a Golanchik, I served in the security zone in Lebanon, where soldiers don't stop falling even today," he says with anger. "I moved from Haifa to Tel Aviv, everyone said I was a beautiful boy and I knew one thing: I want to become famous."
Levi did the only thing, perhaps, that he knows how to do better than acting: to meet girls. "Women always loved me and therefore I always managed thanks to them. I met an acting student and went to see a play at Beit Zvi. This was the real bohemia, I understood that I belonged there. I asked what needs to be done to be accepted, because I didn't have a matriculation certificate. Luckily, I only had to prepare two pieces and a song, and that's how they accepted me to Beit Zvi. But then, again, I met someone new, an American, and I thought to myself: 'If an actor, why not in Hollywood?'".
And so Levi landed in New York. The year was 1990, and everyone who was beautiful and with charisma, worked. "I fell again for an American and flew with her to Hollywood. But after two years I understood the bluff: it is actually the drainage lake of the whole world. I understood that Hollywood is not for me. True, I speak excellent English, but I will always be a stranger to them and it is likely that I will play a terrorist or a corpse. I returned to the country to Beit Zvi, I knew for sure that I would succeed in Israel, and if fate wills it — then there will also be a good Israeli movie that will open doors for me to Hollywood. It can still happen."
Do you feel appreciated today as you felt at the peak of your career?
"Very. Especially since the accident, I feel from the people on the street the peak of appreciation. Even at the peak of the success of 'Michaela' or 'Colombian Love' I didn't receive such appreciation on the street, but I knew inside me that whole generations are growing up on it."
When you look forward, what have you not done yet and you feel must happen?
"Full of things, say a movie in Hollywood. I always said that because a movie in Hollywood is payment in dollars, when it happens I will buy myself a beautiful house by the sea in Beit Yanai."
