The renowned Shtisel actress was at first hesitant to get involved in a biblical adaptation but came around after receiving some powerful advice from a friend.
"He said to me, ‘This is your history. This is your DNA and so you shouldn't be afraid or nervous, you should just take the leap of faith and do it,’” said Zurer. “And I think the reason that I agreed was because of what happened in Israel in the last year and a half, and it suddenly meant even more than just a show or a role – it had a bigger meaning for me.”
Ayelet Zurer as Queen Ahinoam in 'House of David. (Photo Credit: Nikos Nikolopoulos/Prime © Amazon Content Services LLC)Nikos Nikolopoulos/Prime
Zurer’s portrayal of the first queen of Israel, a character whose mentions in the bible are vague and minimal at best, was built around Ahinoam’s relationship with her children Jonathan, Eshbaal, Merab, and Michal.
“Everything she does was really about two aspects: one was being the mother that she is to her children and wanting to protect them and that's kind of what drives her, but there's also other aspects of her that come from the theme of the whole story itself: faith, trust, and what happens when you lose both.”
Zurer, 55, sees Ahinoam as a tragic character, someone who, “in trying to avoid her destiny, actually brings destiny into her own home in a way.”
Queen Ahinoam (Ayelet Zurer) and King Saul (Ali Suliman) in 'House of David'. (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Prime © Amazon Content Services LLC)Courtesy of Prime
While Zurer knew very little of the story and its characters before going into House of David, American actor Stephen Lang has had the David and Goliath tale clanging around his head since Hebrew school.
Lang had the difficult task of bringing to life the mystic Samuel, and while he may have had a cursory understanding of the venerated prophet before, stepping into the man’s shoes was something else altogether.
"Now I have a passing acquaintanceship with him - I feel very, very intimately connected with Samuel,” said Lang, 72. “The idea of his life, the fact that he was chosen, as it were, before conception to be a vessel of Yahweh, of the Lord, is quite an extraordinary concept, and a very interesting and confusing concept to address as an actor as well.”
Lang, a New Yorker of Jewish and Irish Catholic background, said he has always felt “culturally and philosophically very, very Jewish,” and took inspiration from the “humanity of Judaism” in order to get in touch with his character.
“The spiritual side of Samuel is quite apparent, but one of the ways to make that accessible is to really humanise Samuel as well: to show him as a man, to show his vulnerabilities and his frailties and his weaknesses, along with his spiritual fortitude and strength,” said Lang. “So that's one of the things that I attempted to do, to just bring him to living, breathing life, to be someone who you would want to hang out with, or you would trust to be the arbitrator in certain issues of your life.”
Stephen Lang as the prophet Samuel in House of David. (Photo: Nikos Nikolopoulos/Prime Video)[Missing Credit]
Lang’s Samuel, tasked with the burden and blessing of being God’s mouthpiece amid tribal disputes and wars with the Philistines and the Amalekites, is especially striking in his interactions with the young, inexperienced David, whom God tells Samuel to anoint as the new king of Israel. Playing a character who is not only wise but almost grandfatherly, with a waist-long, braided white beard and all-seeing blue-eyed gaze, was a novelty for Lang, one which required him to explore the juxtaposition of strength and weakness in new ways.
“It's the first time in my career that I've played a character who I would have to characterise as old – this is the twilight of his life,” said Lang. “It's been really interesting and a lot of fun, I might say, to bring the kind of age aspect into the character, and it makes me wonder if I've entered permanently into a new phase of my career.”
Newcomer Michael Iskander appears as the shepherd-turned-King David in House of David. (Photo: Jonathan Prime/Prime Video)[Missing Credit]
Like Zurer, Lang also joined the House of David project against the backdrop of what happened on October 7, and the subsequent tension felt by the Jewish community further motivated him to participate in the retelling of the ancient Judeo-Christian tale.
“In the 72 years I've been alive, I've never seen antisemitism at the level that it is right now,” he said. “The life I have lived, the post-WWII life, has been to an extent a golden age for American Jewry, but this suggests it’s ending. And that's very troubling, but it's also something that needs to be remarked upon and monitored and fought against.
“I don't know that any kind of streaming show can do anything to address that, but Samuel is a role model and a figure who's highly regarded by people with very, very divergent opinions about all kinds of things, starting with religion, so it gives me a certain amount of pride and pleasure to be able to articulate that to the world.”
Zurer concurred, adding that the story of David “speaks to almost all of us.”
“It just goes to show that when you have one goal, and politics do not go into that, you can create some magic,” she said. “And I think there was magic in creating this.”
House of David is available to stream on Amazon Prime now.
