You Can’t Make This Up

The Angel

Episode Summary

This week we're discussing the incredible true story behind the new Netflix Original film, The Angel. The Angel is a spy thriller based on the real life of Ashraf Marwan. Ashraf was the son-in-law of Egyptian President Nasser, a special adviser to Anwar Sadat, and one of Israel's most important informants.  Claudia Puig, president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., sits down with director Ariel Vromen to talk about how he brought this story to the screen.

Episode Notes

This week we're discussing the incredible true story behind the new Netflix Original film, The Angel. The Angel is a spy thriller based on the real life of Ashraf Marwan. Ashraf was the son-in-law of Egyptian President Nasser, a special adviser to Anwar Sadat, and one of Israel's most important informants. 

Claudia Puig, president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., sits down with director Ariel Vromen to talk about how he brought this story to the screen.

Episode Transcription

Robin: Welcome to You Can’t Make This Up, a companion podcast from Netflix.  My name’s Robin Dybevik.  I work at Netflix, and I’m really excited to be hosting this week’s episode.  Every other week on You Can’t Make This Up, we bring in a new interviewer to talk about a different Netflix series or film with special guests.  And what’s great about this is that all the stories are surprisingly true.  This week we’re not diving into another docuseries and instead we’re going behind the scenes of Ariel Vromen’s new spy thriller The Angel.


 

[Music]


 

Robin: The Angel is based on this incredible true story of a man named Ashraf Marwan.  Ashraf was the son-in-law of Egyptian President Nasser, who helped overthrow the monarchy in 1952 and then became the second ever president of Egypt.  Ashraf later became a special advisor to President Nasser’s successor, whose name was Anwar Sadat.  Sadat then went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.  So what’s crazy about this though is that through it all, Ashraf was acting as a double agent for both Israel and Egypt, ultimately becoming one of the most important Israeli informants in the country’s history.  Here to talk about Ashraf’s story and the film itself are the President of the LA Film Critics Association Claudia Puig and the movie’s director Ariel Vromen.


 

[Music]


 

Claudia: I’m so happy to be sitting here today with Ariel Vromen, the director of the Netflix film The Angel.  I want to thank you for being here and taking the time to talk with us.


 

Ariel: Thank you.


 

Claudia: To start, I’m curious about how much you knew about Ashraf Marwan before making this movie.  I know you’re from Israel and I know he is considered a national hero there.  Was he someone who was a hero to you?


 

Ariel: Well, actually not.  I knew roughly about the story, but the story was just got familiar to me when I was in London actually at the time where he was supposedly murdered.  And the beginning of the understanding of, that there was, his involvement with the Yom Kippur War was in a very vague way, that I still didn’t know a lot of the details until I was approached by the producers and they told me to read the book.  And that was the first time that I actually got deeper into the story of Ashraf Marwan.  I think since 2007, since his murder, his story became more and more famous and there were a lot of publications about it.  But prior to that, nobody knew who was Ashraf Marwan.


 

Claudia: And the book of course is The Angel:  The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel that you were referring to.


 

Ariel: That’s the first material that I read about him.  There was another book of a guy named Ahron Bregman that also was detailing his involvement with the Mossad and the Egyptian.  And a lot of other investigation and interviews and various newspaper, both Egyptian and Israelis, that there is consistent material that I been exposed to.  But prior to 2007, I had no idea.  Nobody had any idea who he was.


 

Claudia: So you heard about him at the time of his death.


 

Ariel: I heard there was a murder with a suspicious spy.  But still the information was just like trinkling in, like coming slowly into the world.  But it was not until 2012 and 2013 that I was even aware about who was Ashraf Marwan.


 

Claudia: So once you were aware, what was your reaction when you read those books and got more deeply into the research?


 

Ariel: I thought he was a fascinating character.  I was constantly struggle with myself, until today even, like, you know, what was his exact motivation even to become who he was?  I found it really interesting to see when there is, you know, there was another story not long ago about the Green Prince.  And he was the son of the head of the Hamas organization that became a spy for Israel.  So I think when I starting to hear about the story of Ashraf, I thought that it was some sort of revenge or higher interest.  But I didn’t know exactly until we got really deep into the research.  And I met a lot of friends of his from the period from after the war till the day he died and—


 

Claudia: Friends of his on the Egyptian side or on the Israeli side?


 

Ariel: In London.  Because he lived in London.  And it was pretty interesting to see that they even didn’t know anything about him while they were friends with him for 30 years.  So until that whole story came out—and it was a leak that came from Israel after investigation of the Mossad investigation about his involvement with the Israelis—that people starting to understand who is really Ashraf Marwan.


 

Claudia: And his wife Mona also didn’t know what he was doing.  Right?  Or did she later found out?


 

Ariel: The family claimed that they knew.  I guess they didn’t know everything.  But they knew that he was cooperating with Sadat.  I mean, at least from the family point of view, Ashraf was working for the Egyptian.  And his entire involvement with the Israeli is still questionable in their eyes.  From the Mossad point of view, from the Israeli point of view, it was really clear what was his motivation when he approached them.  And it was humiliation and avenging his father-in-law, President Gamal Nasser, at that time.


 

Claudia: Was it mostly that?  Or because it seemed like he was a complicated, maybe there might’ve been a lot of motivations.  I mean, there was money.  He got paid too.  Right?


 

Ariel: Correct.  I guess every spy has a little bit of a money motivation within his work.  But I think his true, deepest understanding, when I heard a lot of stories about him post the war, is that he was always a man of peace.  Even that he was an arm dealer and he had a lot of resorts around the world, he always constructed his deals and his investments around areas that needed a more peaceful environment.  So if there was tribes war in Africa, there was regimes changes in South America, Ashraf Marwan was there.  He was really involved with a lot of intelligence bureaus and from different countries in his second part of his life.  But there was always a motivation to create a peaceful environment for the places that he either provide weapon to rebels or whatever he did.  He really believed that he is contributing to peace.  And when I heard that, it kind of like influenced a lot the character that we created in the film.


 

Claudia: That’s fascinating.  Because it seems so paradoxical, an arms dealer who’s really working for peace.  I mean, on the face of it, that does not sound logical but…  And we’re talking about the second part of his life.  Not in the 70s when he was a double agent and a, or not double agent, but a spy for Israel.  But later after that was when he became an arms dealer.  Right?


 

Ariel: Correct.  Well, I guess through arms you can make changes of regimes that not necessarily are positive for certain people that live in those countries.  So I guess in his point of view—and I guess everybody putting their own point of view out there and they trying to make that, you know, manifest as their reality—he was motivated by peace.  I mean, those—Like I kept on hearing that in dinner parties and social events he was always constantly talking about the need for peace, the need for peaceful communication between, you know, countries or different regimes.  So he was very affected by that.  So if you’re looking at the details of what he’s done between Israel and Egypt, I mean, it’s the outcome is 41 years of peace.


 

Claudia: Yes, exactly.  So he, sounds like he was motivated then more by peace than he was by trying to get back at his former father-in-law.


 

Ariel: Yeah.  But I think this is something he discovered in himself during the process.  I don’t think that when he made the call or when he decided to cross the line, he had a full agenda and a plan.  I think at that point it was I need the money and I can show, you know, the big man that he’s wrong.  He didn’t really follow that through because the Mossad never approached him at that point because they didn’t see him as a serious man.  I mean, he didn’t have any serious government position, not until Sadat came to control in Egypt to replace Nasser.


 

Claudia: I was so surprised when he first called Mossad and he just used his name.  He didn’t have a cover name or anything like that and they later tracked him down.  But how many people in Mossad did you talk to to do the research?  Because that’s also fascinating?


 

Ariel: Well, we talked to a few Mossad, ex-Mossad officers that were serving at the time where Ashraf was an asset.  In their point of view—And, again, in Mossad there’s also two voices right now.  One voice says like he was only working for the Israelis.  And in fact the head of the Mossad at the time, Zvi Zamir, who is still alive—think he’s celebrating his 96th birthday soon—well, he’s not happy probably with the movie because I—The former Mossad Zvi Zamir still thinks or believe that Ashraf Marwan was only working for him, that he had no whatsoever cooperation with the Egyptian government throughout the entire service.


 

Claudia: That he’d kind of renounced his whole Egyptian status.


 

Ariel: Correct.  And the head of the army intelligent, Eli Zeira, claimed the opposite.  And that kind of like what started in the 70s, post the Yom Kippur War, what they call the General War where every side of the Israeli generals literally started a huge, huge argument that went into court and end up with—I don’t think there was a verdict whether Ashraf was this or that.  But there was definitely a lot of animosity between Zvi Zamir and Eli Zeira.  So the two head of the intelligence that basically making the decision were not agreeing with each other.


 

Claudia: So where do you fall on it?  Just as personally did you think one thing before you kind of started delving into it and do you think something else now or where do you see him?


 

Ariel: Well, obviously I took an approach in the film to follow a character that has a bigger reason than greed.  I didn’t, I could not follow and I could not see Ashraf Marwan living in a greed arena through his life just working for the Israelis.  I totally understand what was his risk and what he sacrificed.  You know, he sacrificed his family.  He sacrificed eventually his, almost his life for the cause.  So I had the belief inside of me, and again from hearing it from both sides—Because the Egyptian will tell you he only worked for them.  Some of the Israeli will say he’s only working for us.  And then somewhere in the middle everybody agree that he probably worked for both of them.  So, again, so the approach was here's a man that did everything he could to create a peaceful environment between the two countries, that the level of war and bloodshed that was between Israel and Egypt until the 70s was higher and more violent than the war between the Israelis and Palestinians since the 80s.  So I think the message of the film is that one man, an individual, can change the course of history and can save thousand of thousands of life.  But you do need to sacrifice something.  You cannot just do it for the cause of greed or money.  I do believe that there was a bigger voice inside of Ashraf Marwan.  And that’s why I decided to do this movie, because I did believe that he is a hero.


 

Claudia: That’s a wonderful message too.  I think we need that, the idea, you know, sometimes people can feel so powerless.  But the thought that one person could affect that kind of change is inspiring.


 

Ariel: We do feel powerless.  You know?  And you hear it all the time.  And especially now when you have like so many people that have a social media, you know, approach to millions of people, they don’t do anything with it.  And it seems like nobody has a real voice anymore.  And that’s also leading into the fact that we have so many conflicts right now in the world.  War and bloodsheds everywhere because there’s no one individual that’s going to make a change.  And I think hopefully the movie will inspire young people that, you know, that feels hopeless and that they’re like little sands in the ocean, that they cannot do anything, that show them that, yes, you can.  I mean, you can make a difference.  But you’re going to have to sacrifice everything you have for that.


 

Claudia: I hope it inspires a viewer too.  I hope this, I hope our conversation inspires someone.  You’re telling a true story obviously, but you still need drama and tension in it.  This is not a documentary.  So were there parts in which you sort of deviated from the real story or embellished it for dramatic purposes?


 

Ariel: Yeah.


 

Claudia: Like, for instance, Diana Ellis.  Was that a real person?  There was a swinging mod British actress?


 

Ariel: The real name was Diana Davis.  The only problem that we had with Diana Davis like to portray her as a one-to-one character is that at the time that she was in touch with Ashraf, she was older and there was some rumors that she was already super drunk and not as effective.  But her involvement with him—And she was, Diana Davis was like the Marilyn Monroe of London at that time.  So her involvement with Ashraf is real.  We did not able to get her life rights for this film.  So we just created Diana Ellis as a character that present a younger version of Diana Davis.  And, again, she was a, I will not say that she was a partner of Ashraf Marwan, but she definitely helped him.  And many of the little stories that were in the memoirs of Marwan that came out through that she was, she had a pretty interesting relationship with him.  Not necessarily a sexual relationship, but like partnership relationship.


 

Claudia: She was intrigued by what he was doing.


 

Ariel: She loved those espionage games, yeah.


 

Claudia: So were there other aspects?  I mean, I would think it would be tough to balance the accuracy of the story with the sense of drama and tension.


 

Ariel: I think in every true story you do, and especially you have a format of a feature film and you have less time like you have on TV to dig in into character.  You need to portray an idea in a simple through line that will enhance the story.  So of course, you know, I was never in the living room with Mona and Ashraf.  I was not in the club when Ashraf was dancing.  But we did know that he had, you know, a big love for poker and for drinking.  And we did know that the Bag O’ Nails was a club that a lot of the nights of his, you know, he spent a lot of the nights over there.  So, again, so when you structure a script, you’re picking up, you know, ideas of what the moment means.  And hopefully, you know, you’re creating a canvas that tell the story of the complexity of a character, that, yeah, that he’s not a perfect man, that he is not like, you know, a straightforward hero, that he has vices.  Maybe we didn’t even touch as much as we could.  You know, one of the criticism I heard from my nephew, he was really upset that there was no sex scene between Diana Ellis and Ashraf Marwan.  And I was like oh, you know…


 

Claudia: It was implied.


 

Ariel: It was implied.  He’s 17.  He can understand that.


 

Claudia: Yes.  So speaking of sort of the fictional aspects or the parts that are interesting dramatic turns, you use the theme of the boy who cried wolf in the storytelling.  And I wondered if that was something that the screenwriter David Arata, who wrote Children of Men, added for dramatic effect or if that was actually, did Danny actually give him, Ashraf the Aesop’s Fables?  Or how did that come about?


 

Ariel: Well, in the court trial or in the hearing, the Mossad hearing that ended in 2007, the way that the defense of the Eli Zeira lawyers used in the protocol of the court that story as the theme of their defense of how Ashraf played Israel.  So you could see like all over the court documents, you know, the boy who cried wolf.  It’s the based used at analysis.  So we put it inside.  And I thought like, you know, who—I mean, I had my dad reading me that story.  And I remember that was a huge impact on my life as well.  Because, you know, when you have a big imagination as a kid, you know, sometimes you can tell a story.  But then eventually when it happens, you know, nobody believes you.  So I really, I got really connected to that.  I hope I didn’t hit it too much on the head.  But it was definitely something that was repeated that that was his technique.  He definitely played that game on Israel.  That was the best way for him to get Israel frustrated from his information.  Because he kept on doing great things and then he kept on lying on one specific thing.  And when you’re getting upset the first time and you’re getting, you know, I want to say screwed the second time and then you just don’t believe him anymore.  So he had a channel of trust and he was considered still to be like the big—Like every Mossad agent will tell you that he, Ashraf Marwan was the biggest asset for the Israeli intelligent.


 

Claudia: Wow.


 

Ariel: That’s hands down like agreed by everybody.  Now, how he played Israel, some will tell you that he didn’t.


 

Claudia: Let’s take a listen to how he did play it with a clip with that Aesop Fable.


 

Man: What’s this?


 

Man 2: Open it.  Man: The Boy Who Cried Wolf.


 

Man: Used to read it to Gamal.


 

Man 2: Little shepherd boy who cried wolf twice.  So the third time no one believed him.  You’re good.


 

Man: Thank you.


 

Claudia: Because of that, I think because he was a father too, I found myself wondering about Ashraf’s childhood and his youth and even his family background, how he met—I know if you were doing a docuseries or, you know, a full series that would be something you would go into but…


 

Ariel: It’s funny.  Like there was a scene in the script.  In the first draft that I got from David, the first act was actually really involved on the entire relationship between Ashraf and Mona.  According to what David wrote and what the book was saying, that he wanted very much so to be associate with that family.  I mean, at that time, Gamal Nasser was the biggest Arab hero.  There was no bigger leader in the Arab world until him.  He united the Arab world where, as you can see even today how divided they are.  And the violence between them is levels that we don’t experience with our biggest enemies.  So what Nasser did, he actually were able to really, really combine and gather the entire Arab world into one voice.  So the association to his family I think was something that was a big dream for a lot of young ambitious men.  And you can see that Ashraf was an ambitious man.  You see that he was a very good-looking man.  He was super charming.  And he got the heart of Mona on the tennis court.  He actually was a good tennis player.  And by coming in and I’m assuming showing off his skills, he got her attention.  So their relationship started with a little bit of disapproval obviously of the father.  When he became serious and he proposed to her and they actually got married, there is a excellent video on YouTube you can find out from the wedding.  And you can see Nasser.  It’s just the way he react over there.  And it’s really seeing somebody in misery.  I mean, he looked miserable the entire wedding, shaking everybody’s hand coming in.  And it’s a really good video.


 

Claudia: Why did he dislike him so much?


 

Ariel: I think that it was partially because of his family association.  You know, in Egypt there is classes.  And like, for instance, Sadat is coming from a farmer’s class, which is kind of like weird that made his way through the army and eventually, you know, got all the way up to being the Vice President at that time.  But Ashraf also, Ashraf was not associated with the leading respected families in Egypt.  And I think it, like today in any royal environment family, the wedding and the association is something that is very important.  And Ashraf was an outsider.  So immediately there was an antagonism between the relationship between him and the father-in-law.  But I think for him, meet the father was a harder experience.  So I just had time for one scene in the movie.  Because, you know, again, the timeline when we’re doing feature, you just need to touch a point and you cannot really get too deep unless that was the movie’s about.  If the movie was about the relationship and about how he became who he became, I understand you need to invest as much as time you can do in order to build that background and relationship.  I just had to find him one mechanism.  And there was a protocol of that dinner in the American embassy which was, again, a little bit manipulated for the purposes of the relationship.  Like I didn’t know that, you know, Gamal was like so brutal with his words to Mona.  But I just thought that this is going to be a good example of seeing how he’s not a part of what Gamal, what President Nasser sees as his son-in-law.  And that’s why that scene when he humiliate him over the door and he can hear it kind of like tells a story without getting into too many family moments and dramas.  Which, by the way, were written in early drafts that I had to cut down a little bit.


 

Claudia: Right.  Well, it was interesting because he did have that antagonism with his father-in-law.  But then when Sadat became President it was, he had the bond with him.  So you would think he would be maybe less motivated at that point with his anger with his father-in-law because he was dead and, you know, he had a more integral position in the Egyptian government at that point.


 

Ariel: I think what happened to him is like he was cheating on an exam and he just hoped that he won’t get caught.  And time has passed, things has change, and you think that that clerk in the Israeli embassy in London didn’t pass it on.  And, by the way, it—And it was until today like it’s a big story.  Like how come they didn’t approach him earlier.  And there was like kind of like a procedure.  You know, we hear it, you know, about 9/11 and about a lot of other terrorist attacks that the FBI got alerts and somebody called and somebody said something and not, and they—


 

Claudia: Nobody paid attention.  Yeah, yeah.


 

Ariel: And nobody paid attention.  So there is something like that.  And I took that liberty to understand that that was happened.  And there was not until Sadat did like him, did like his approach, did like this whole entire theory about the relationship with the Americans and leaving the Soviets.  And I think where he got a real position in the Egyptian government, suddenly he became a value.  And this is where somebody, you know, in the London branch and in the Mossad in Israel say, hey, hold on, we got a call from that guy, let’s see what his story is.  And when he got caught, and I think, you know, in a way the Israeli grabs him by the balls, if you want to say in a....  I mean, it’s a little bit harsh, but that’s the truth.  They literally say, look, we know where you are right now, we know what you did, you should work for us.  And I think, again, his entire agenda at this point was obviously not to create an earthquake and not to lose his wife and not to lose his position in the government.  So in the beginning he started to see if there is actually a bigger reason for him to be there.  So, yeah, he started to get paid.  He understood that he’s making friends pretty quickly with the Israelis.  And that became an asset that he turned and used it not against Israel and not against Egypt.  It’s actually for the better cause.


 

Claudia: In his own—


 

Ariel: Yeah.


 

Claudia: Yes, in his, for his own cause.  So I want to jump ahead to his death because it is mysterious.  Some say he committed suicide.  Was it the fourth or fifth floor balcony that he—


 

Ariel: Fourth.


 

Claudia: Fourth floor.  In London.  But it seems like foul play because a guy who’s an arms dealer and who is so careful in other ways doesn’t just fall off a balcony.  And he wasn’t very old.  So…


 

Ariel: No.


 

Claudia: What did you hear from people as you spoke to them about it?


 

Ariel: It’s interesting because every time you’re speaking to some high-rank official people from both countries, there’s always a side of me saying, oh, maybe it was you.  I mean, because the motivation is awkward.  I mean, what was motivation of the Israelis to kill him?  Because they didn’t want to be exposed the fact that they were, you know, messed up in the war and the biggest war of Israel, that the biggest casualty was actually caused from a reckless move by the Mossad.  So you can say, well, maybe they want to shut him down and not let him talk.  You know, the Egyptian, it’s obviously we talked about it.  I mean, that’s a big humiliation to understand that this guy’s actually was in a party for the Israelis.  But at that time of death, he might have new enemies.  You know?  Again, the guy was like an arm dealer.


 

Claudia: He’s an arms dealer, yeah.


 

Ariel: He had like probably—I don’t know—some debts or some results.  Although he died with a fortune of over three billion dollars that he inherit to his family.


 

Claudia: What?  Oh my God.


 

Ariel: Yeah, his son Gamal is, you know, lives here in LA and in London.  He’s a very, very wealthy man.


 

Claudia: Was he involved in the production, Gamal?


 

Ariel: No.  No, no, no.  We got a little bit of criticism because originally everybody thought I’m going to take the book point of view, the original book that I was exposed to, the Uri Bar-Joseph book.  And I didn’t because that book actually suggested he was just a spy for Israel.  And it just didn’t feel right.  And it also didn’t feel—The reason to tell a story like that was not agreeing for me.  Like I don’t want to tell just a story about a spy.  I want to tell a much more complex story about a guy that actually had, you know, a meaning behind his action and fact.  You know, no matter how you look at it—and that’s a line from the movie—you know, both Ashraf and the agent, the Israeli agent did serve the country well.  Because you need to look back at life and back into history and say, well, what was the outcome of the war, what was the outcome of our relationship?  And if you can understand the positivity message behind it and you understand that this is what happened, then there’s a life meaning behind that person.  So he’s not just a spy.  You know, he’s not just working for one side.  I mean, he had a bigger motivation that not necessarily was his intention in the beginning but definitely end up to be that.


 

Claudia: Why tell the story now?  It seems very timely.  But what lessons do you want the audience to take away?


 

Ariel: Well, I’m pretty much sure that we’re heading into a much deeper chaotic phase in the world in the next year.  I think the conflicts between the Shias and the Sunnis within the Middle East, it’s just reaching to a whole new level where the powers are separated and defined between Iran and Saudi, Syria, Yemen, you know, all those countries that, Iraq, that were destroyed in the last decade.  Basically many nations that are just nonexistent anymore.  And I think the conflict is just reaching another level where the west and the east are getting involved within that conflict.  So the message is you cannot look at history and think that there is no hope.  And I think this movie is just to show you that the difference between Israelis and Arabs are…  There is no difference.  I mean, we all just live in a region that is actually super fruitful, is beautiful, has so much history, has great resources.  And if two countries that were the biggest enemy—I mean, Egypt was the sign of hatred and resented against the state of Israel from ’48 war to ’56 to ’67.  And to see that those country grow out of it.  Now, whether there is hate in Egypt against Israel, hundred percent today.  Whether there is still, you know, a chaotic complex feelings about Israeli feels towards, you know, if they feel safe in Egypt or they feel that these are our neighbors and friends, I cannot say that either.  But if I would walk and I would meet an Egyptian person, there would be an immediate connection.  I mean, there would be no problem.  I mean, even though there were like parts in the government that still think that, you know, that, again, that comes out from this entire conflict of the Shia and Sunnis within the Arab world.  But I think the message of this film is you cannot win with war.  There is just no chance you can win.  And peace, whether is lovely peace, fruitful peace, or whatever it is, the outcome of it, guarantee it’s a win compared to war.  So I know it’s a little bit cliché and it’s obvious.  It’s like stating the obvious.  You know, feel the love and then hatred.  You know, it’s easy said than done.  But this movie showed you that it’s a fact.  And not only it’s a fact because of the regime that was at that time that made the peace process between Israel and Egypt.  We saw it through, you know, just in the last few years where the Muslim brother came into control in Egypt where there are the biggest hatred of Israel in terms of like in the Egyptian government policies.  And they still respected the peace process.  No matter how much they could’ve created war, there was no one soldier from both side that died between the conflicts in ’74 between Israel and Egypt.  And the amount of soldier that died prior to that are almost three times the number that of casualties between Israelis and Palestinians.


 

Claudia: Wow.  What about on the set?  Just going from the macro level to the micro level.  Did you as an Israeli feel any—Was there any sense of conflict?  You had actors who were Egyptian or Arab.  How did they react to you?


 

Ariel: Yes, we had a very international set.  And there was a little bit of a discussion.  We tried to stay out of politics within the set and not to bring our own point of views.  But one good story’s between me and Maisa, who played Mona.  And she’s a big activist, Palestinian activist in Israel.  She’s against a lot of things that happen between the Palestinians and the Israelis right now.  And she came to the set and you could feel that she’s not giving me definitely not the love, but also like the attention and—


 

Claudia: Respect?


 

Ariel: I would not say respect.  But she was not happy to have a long conversation with me.  I mean, it was not something that she felt comfortable with.  And I almost made it as a point that I’m going to buy her heart and make her change her mind throughout the process, to understand that prejudiced and thinking whatever theories or ideas you have in your mind, you know, that because you chose to believe them, are not necessarily the truth.  And I think the outcome of this film is what it was.  I mean, she, we became really good friends.  And she realized that the more she’s going to communicate and the more she’s going to show that there is a coexistence between the two, that’s going to be the message that she’s going to start to portray instead of just using her social media for, you know, aggravating people with the story and how come we’re not, you know, we’re not that or we should hate.  She’s still, you know, pretty much a strong activist in Palestine.  But I think she did see another side of the conflict that she didn’t expect.


 

Claudia: And that’s a wonderful note to end on.  I thank you so much…


 

Ariel: No, thank you.


 

Claudia: …for this conversation.  It’s been fascinating.


 

Ariel: Good.


 

Claudia: Thank you.


 

Ariel: Thank you.


 

[Music]


 

Robin: That was Claudia and Ariel.  But we’d like to hear from you.  Here are some of your memorable reactions to The Angel.


 

Woman: This is one from @trailjosh.  Netflix original films are always on point.  The Angel?  What a film.


 

Man: This tweet is from @dougj7777.  Just finished watching Netflix original The Angel, a true story of spies, diplomatic games, and terror.  Pure edge-of-your-seat suspense.  Nine out of 10.


 

Woman: @janettepoulson says, wow, thumbs up, thumbs up.  I just saw the movie The Angel on Netflix Denmark and I recommend you all to watch the movie.  You will not regret it.  Star emoji, star emoji, star emoji, star emoji, star emoji, star emoji.  @realmen,  Amazing movie and great job!  Strong arm emoji, smiley face emoji, #theangelmovie, #netflix, #arielvromen, #amazingmovie, #greatjob, #denmark.


 

Robin: If you want to share any of your thoughts on any Netflix true stories, you can search for You Can’t Make This Up on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  We are the ones with that little blue check bubble.  Before we let you go, we’ve got one more question for our guests.  It is time for what you watching?  That’s the part of the podcast where we find out what the people in this episode are watching on their own Netflix accounts.


 

Ariel: I saw Icarus, which I loved, the documentary.  Obviously Stranger Things.  It’s a great, cool TV show.  And Ozark.  On the film side, I loved Mudbound.  I thought it was a great film.  And yesterday I saw a film, which I didn’t finish it yet, but my wife loved it.  But it’s the hardest title that I cannot even remember.  It’s something about a pie and a potato.


 

Claudia: Oh, The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel…  What is that?


 

Ariel: It’s a beautifully shot film.  I’m a huge fan of Narcos.  I’m a huge fan of The Crown.  And as I said, again, Netflix has an authentic taste that no one else has in the market.  So that’s what I’ve watched.


 

Claudia: I was absolutely fascinated, binge watching Wild Wild Country.  And I remember the bog one and his fleet of Rolls Royces.  And this was so interesting.  I didn’t know anything about Sheela and that whole kind of commune thing that they were doing and the love, free love era and all, everything and all her sort of manipulations and all the other people who were his diehard, you know, devotees and stuff.  I was fascinated by that.  And like you, I’m also, I was fascinated by Icarus.  Going back, Okja was some, a film that I really loved.  So, yeah, there’s just so many great things.  And of course The Angel.


 

Ariel: Thank you.


 

Robin: So that’s it for this week’s episode.  But we’ll be back in two weeks to talk about another true story.  As for this show, you can find us on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and pretty much wherever else you want to get your podcasts.  We’d love it if you would subscribe, rate, and review the show.  Because, one, it helps other people find it.  And, two, it makes me feel ultimately very cool as your host.  You Can’t Make This Up is a production of Pineapple Street Media and Netflix.  Our music is by Hansdale Hsu.  I’m Robin Dubovic.  Thank you for listening.


 

[Music]