00:06On location in Israel, with the recent making of an astonishing true story,
00:11and Israeli secret agents rise to power in the Syrian government.
00:15Two years after he was captured and hanged,
00:18the information he supplied enabled Israel to win the Six-Day War.
00:23His name was Eli Cohn.
00:25John Shea plays the role of Eli Cohn.
00:28One of the things I realized about a spy is that a spy is really an actor.
00:33Except he's working, his stakes are a little higher.
00:36If I do a bad job, you know, I get a bad review.
00:39But if he does a bad job acting, he gets killed.
00:43And Eli Cohn, so, as this, you know, Israeli Jew from an Egyptian background,
00:49suddenly started transforming himself into this Arab called Kamal Amin Tabet.
00:56And, I don't know, all kinds of interesting things went on.
01:01He started, the way actors do, if they begin to over-identify with a character,
01:05he started to lose some of his original self.
01:11And the lines between the persona and the mask that he created and his original self became really, really blurred.
01:18From now on, you will lead two lives, husband and secret agent.
01:22You will be trained in the methods of the Mossad.
01:25Infiltration, observation, communication, and how to survive.
01:30You will also be trained to become a Syrian.
01:34Eli Cohn's family remained in Tel Aviv, not knowing until he was captured that he was a spy.
01:40He would come back and visit his wife every once in a while.
01:44And the times that he came back were always very difficult times,
01:47because, like, an actor plays a role for a long period of time,
01:50let's say in a Broadway play for a year or something like that.
01:53You begin to take on the characteristics of the role.
01:55But at least at night, you take off your makeup, you go home, and you're with your family and things like this.
02:00But imagine playing a role 24 hours a day for six months at a time, right?
02:05When your life is at stake, you have to become so good at playing that role
02:10that you have to forget about your original self,
02:13because if you let your original self show for one second, you're dead.
02:18They catch you, they kill you, you're dead.
02:20And late one night, during the filming of the Kibbutz,
02:23Eli Wallach describes the turmoil that surrounded the Mossad's leader.
02:28He's done his job, and I'm very happy with what he's done.
02:31And I suggest he go home now and lead a normal life.
02:34And he says, no, he's got to go back one more time.
02:38And that one more time results in his being caught.
02:42That was the hardest scene of all.
02:45Also, yesterday I was telling his wife that he'd been captured.
02:49And that, too, was a hard scene to do.
02:52Don't give up hope. We're trying everything we can.
02:57We're offering all the Syrian spies we've got in exchange for him.
03:02And if that's not possible, we're prepared to offer a million dollars,
03:07plus trucks, tractors, medical supplies.
03:11And, of course, we'll bring all the international pressure we can to try and get them to accept.
03:18Why didn't they know?
03:21Why did you all lie?
03:23Filming in the Middle East, where the actual story unfolded, offers insight into the complexities that surrounded Ellie Cohn's occupation as a secret agent.
03:32It's always been the promised land and a really valuable piece of property for a lot of people.
03:37And now the whole world is always, you know, looking to see what's happening in Israel.
03:42The whole Middle East is sort of like New England, you know.
03:45And that everything has happened so quickly here.
03:47That Beirut is only as far as it is from New York to Stanford, Connecticut, you know.
03:50And if you were bombing Beirut, it would be like bombing Connecticut from Manhattan, you know.
03:55This is strange and how close and how dangerous everything is.
03:58And I've traveled all over the country.
04:00I've been all along the Lebanese border and the Golan Heights and the Syrian border and the Jordan border.
04:04And I've been to Cairo and Egypt and all over the place now.
04:07And now I come to understand why the place is so special.
04:10And now the historical account of one of the most astonishing true spy thrillers is captured in the HBO Showcase presentation of The Impossible Spy this month.
