AllMovie

A thickset character actor with an exotic countenance (piqued by his bushy black eyebrows and bald pate), Yigal Naor opted to parlay his appearance into gritty, evocative portrayals of thugs and heavies onscreen -- often, though not always, characters of expressly Middle Eastern origin. He took his premier onscreen bows around 1987 but peaked in activity approximately two decades later, in the early 2000s. Memorable portrayals included that of a principal in the 2004 Israeli comedy Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, the terrorist Mahmoud Hamshari in Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005), and the intimidating head of an underground prison in the thriller Rendition (2007).