Interview: Jeff Wilbusch on Bringing Detective Avraham Avraham to Life in ‘The Calling’

The Calling, a new drama series from Peacock, is based on Dror A. Mishani’s the book The Missing File, transplanting its main character, Detective Avraham Avraham, from Israel to the United States, and more specifically, New York City. But this isn’t just another version of Law & Order; it’s a show that touches on its lead detective’s very unusual approach to his work, fueled by his deep spirituality and a host of contradictions.

Awards Radar had the chance to speak with Jeff Wilbusch, who plays Detective Avraham, better known as Avi, and will be most familiar to television audiences from his role as Moishe in Netflix’s Unorthodox. Wilbusch elaborated on how he sees Avi and the ways in which he’s still working through who he is:

“Avi is a master of psychology, but his relationship to himself needs some work. He loves people, has such a deep empathy for the world, but he’s a lone wolf. He’s a loner. These contradictions, he has so many different sides to him, and I think he’s a very interesting character to play.”

Wilbusch also celebrated the fact that the show can feature realistic portrayals of observance and how the international television landscape allows for a wide variety of stories to be told:

“The beautiful thing about storytelling is that, what we thought was impossible – people would never watch a show in Yiddish – becomes a world hit. I think we live in a time and a zeitgeist that you can watch a series from South Korea and you enjoy every moment of it, or a movie. I think it’s beautiful, and I think it’s an opportunity for sure.”

Watch the full conversations below:

All eight episodes of The Calling premiere Thursday, November 10^th on Peacock.