Take two for twins
TWINS Gil and Oren Ben-Moshe have shared more than identical traits with their love of comedy and acting, but their road to stardom has been marked by tragedy.
LEXI LANDSMAN
TWINS Gil and Oren Ben-Moshe are loud, full of energy and exhausting. “We are full of action,” Gil, the older of the two by a proud 22 minutes, says, as they settle for our interview, but not before they distract the entire office with an impromptu skit as they walk through the glass doors.
It’s hard to tell them apart, not because they look, well, identical, but more because they have similar senses of humour, voices and gestures. They finish each other’s sentences, quite literally.
They playfully banter with each other and it’s difficult to keep up with them. If you close your eyes and listen, you might be mistaken for thinking you were in the audience of a stand-up comedy routine.
“I think we’ve always had our ‘twin banter’ as people call it,” Gil says. “A lot of people say it’s our language; that’s the way we communicate with each other.”
“Sorry I didn’t understand that,” Oren jokes, interrupting.
At Moriah College, where they attended school and regularly performed skits in assembly, few could tell them apart.
“We’ve always had a special bond, only because we have always lived together,” Gil says, and Oren jokes, “We still sleep in bunk beds.”
“Oren, they don’t need to know that,” Gil quips.
They have a comeback, or a joke, for anything and everything. Their “twin banter” has come to define them since their school days, when the twins realised they loved an audience, the camera and performing as a duo.
They joke that comedy is in their blood. “Our father had a special sense of humour, Mum was just hysterical and our brother is the funniest guy we know,” Gil says.
But their optimism and humour is a stark contrast to the events of their recent lives.
The identical twin brothers, who have an older brother Yaron (“We are like triplets,” Gil says) grew up in Woolloomooloo and faced a number of life-altering tragedies and financial struggles.
Their father broke his spine within months of migrating to Australia from Israel, almost 40 years ago.
Their mother was forced to earn a living for the family and went out to work as a caterer, as well as caring for her three sons.
Set on pursuing their dream after finishing high school, the twins joined an agency specialising in twins and they appeared in a number of commercials, TV series and feature films.
After spending a month in the US in 2002, Gil and Oren developed an idea for a sitcom, predominately about, well you guessed it, twins.
They named it Twin Cheeks. They wrote a pilot, filmed it in Australia for next to nothing, burned it to DVD and headed back to the US in 2003 with something to show producers.
When they were there, they entered an acting competition, which was held in Orlando, Florida. Out of 2000 male actors from across the country, they both made the finals. Following their performance, NBC approached them with the concept of an “Aussie twins” reality show.
While they waited six months for the show to be developed, Gil and Oren ventured off to Vancouver, Canada. After just eight days there, tragedy occurred. Their father, at 62, passed away.
They returned to Sydney and though his passing changed their lives, Oren says they felt even more determined to realise their dreams. They wrote a screenplay for a movie, which took up the greater part of the last five years.
In October 2005, however, tragedy struck again when their mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Along with their older brother, they took their mother to every doctor’s appointment and chemotherapy session. And it was during these long drawn out hours in hospitals and waiting rooms, that they found the time to work on and develop their script.
So how did they find the strength to be funny when faced with such tragedy? “Through Mum,” Oren says seriously.
“It was Mum who inspired us to write. It was really hard to see her like that and write comedy, but she wanted us to do it,” Oren says, admitting that writing comedy was also “a mask at the time”.
When she was going through chemotherapy, they would sit on either side of her and write lines. They even wrote a part for her in the script.
“Even when Mum was on her deathbed, she said to us, ‘don’t give up on your dreams,’ and that hit home hard.”
In January 31, 2008, their mother passed away at 60 years of age. It has been a difficult journey for them since, but their exceptionally close bond with each other and their older brother Yaron has pushed them through.
“Yaron has been our rock since Mum and Dad passed away. He has taken the responsibility to be like our parents; he does everything for us. He is the most incredible brother,” Oren says.
And they haven’t given up their dream. They have recently returned from Los Angeles with positive feedback on their screenplay.
Two former Water Rats stars, Jay Laga’aia and Brett Partridge, have both accepted roles in the movie. They’ve been in discussions with actors Anthony LaPaglia and Melissa George about the possibility of roles in the film.
A number of Los Angeles-based production companies and one in Sydney have expressed strong interest.
When I ask the name of the film, they perform a drum roll and at the same time, say: “The Unreel Life of Joshua Shmuckman.”
The script is about identical twins -— Josh and Dan. Josh is married with a child and has a dream to go to Hollywood, while Dan is a TV reporter looking for a breaking story to define his career. A spanner is thrown into the works when Dan’s dream of being the best reporter means betraying his brother.
“It’s about morals, twins, family values and the choices you make in life.”
They are returning to Los Angeles in a few weeks with the hope that finally their dream of making the film might become a reality.
All they need now is some funding to get it off the ground.
“We are not taking no for an answer. We’ll do whatever it takes to get it made,” Oren says. “This is our passion, it’s our love. It’s what we’ve wanted to do our entire lives. To get this movie would be a dream come true for us.”
Gil adds: “When we see it on the big screen, we will just know Mum and Dad will be there with us. That will be the biggest day of our lives.”
For more information: www.actiontwins.com.
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