If the trip into the chaotic and alarming world of teen boys in Netflix’s “Adolescence” made you want more TV about troubled boys, then you’re in luck. A new Israeli show, “Bad Boy,” is now streaming on Netflix. On the surface, it’s a show about what happens after the murder of a teen girl, and it takes place in a teen penitentiary. But the show also explores different dynamics, zooming in on the psyches of the young boys behind bars — specifically, one troubled boy named Dean Shaiman, played by Guy Menaster. It’s “Adolescence” meets “Orange Is the New Black”; the show is about Dean’s gift for entertaining and telling jokes, and his character becomes a stand-up comedian in adulthood.
Here’s everything you need to know about your next Netflix binge.
“Bad Boy” is based on a real story
Dean Shaiman is really the birth name of Daniel Chen (who plays himself in the show, the adult version of Menaster’s Shaiman). Chen was born and raised in Tel Aviv and just like his “Bad Boy” character, was raised by a troubled mother. His father was not in the picture. He was sent to the Broshim school for children with learning challenges and conduct disorders like his, and spent multiple sentences at Ofek Prison between ages 14 and 19. Chen became a successful stand-up comedian in adulthood as well as a TV writer and comic actor.
He wrote about the experience of making his story come to life in the hot network TV show on Instagram, sharing a picture of himself, his younger brother and his mom, who looks a lot like the actress who plays her in the series, Neta Plotnik. In the half-jokey half-heartfelt post, he thanks his mother for “her good intentions that paved a road straight to hell,” his father for abandoning him, loneliness, his audience and himself for “always chasing my dreams even when those dreams were to be a criminal.”
“Bad Boy”‘s co-creator is the man behind “Euphoria”
Ron Leshem, who co-created the show with Hagar Ben-Asher and in partnership with Chen, is a journalist turned TV-maker who in 2012 created the Israeli show “Euphoria.” The show only aired in Israel for one season, but it was later procured by HBO, and well, the rest? Is Zendaya-starring history. Yet “Euphoria” was originally supposed to be a show narrated by a teen in a penitentiary, Leshem told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I told the idea to one of the most powerful drama executives in Hollywood, and she said, ‘Yes, let’s do ‘Oz’ with kids!’ And I went home, and I realized, I don’t want to live inside ‘Oz’ with kids. I don’t want to write this thing,” Leshem continued. “And that was the moment I knew I needed to write something different.”
Leshem actually met Chen during his career as a reporter, when he embedded himself at Ofek Prison for two weeks. He also met other real-life versions of characters that make it into the show like Freddie Soosan played by Ishay Laloosh.
The show was shot, in part, in an actual prison
Star Guy Menaster shared that the show was shot in part at the Ramla/Ayalon Prison, which is a fully operational prison. They also shot at a prison in Tel Mond which was not operational and in a set that they created inside the Ramat Gan scouts building.
“Bad Boy” was teen actor Guy Menaster’s third TV role
Menaster is the son of actor Oded Menaster, who also plays his dad in the show briefly. He told Ynet that shooting the show was extremely challenging — shooting an emotionally complicated and physically brutal show in the midst of a war, as a high school student — but that director Hagar Ben-Asher felt like a surrogate mother figure. He also shared that laying tefillin and getting more religious and studying Torah and Gemara during the shooting of the show and after it has helped him.
“Bad Boy” was a hit in Israel — and critically beloved
“Bad Boy” won seven Israeli TV academy awards, including an award for Best Drama and Best Acting, and the show was a hit and widely beloved by critics. We’ll have to wait and see how it translates to Netflix audiences.
