ARTS AND CULTURE

Ben Foster

Actor

Born into a Jewish home in Boston, actor Ben Foster has played leading roles in hit movies like “Alpha Dog,” “X-Men” and “The Punisher.” In 2022, he starred in the HBO movie “The Survivor,” which tells the story of Harry Haft – a Polish Jewish boxer who survived incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp by engaging in competitive bouts with fellow prisoners. The harrowing scenes in the film set during the Holocaust are shot in black and white, while Foster lost 60 pounds of weight as preparation for his role as Haft. “Working with the Shoah Foundation, I listened to hundreds of hours of testimonies and was lent the opportunity to sit and saturate in the voices of the survivors,” Foster told the Hollywood Reporter. In another interview with Variety, Foster opened up about the impact of the role on his own psyche. “It’s strange having dreams of a concentration camp I was never in,” he said. “I was having Harry’s nightmares, I don’t know how else to say it.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)