Ahead of the International Emmy Awards, where his charming coming-of-age series Bad Boy will compete for Best Drama Series at the International Emmy Awards, Ron Leshem talks to Variety about what inspired him to create the show with Daniel Amsel, who co-created the original Isreari Euphoria, actress/writer/director Hager Ben Asher (The Sluts, Prisoners of War), Amit Cohen, and others. Co-creator and screenwriter of “Red Skies” and “No Man’s Land.”
The eight-episode series debuted on Netflix in early May and was ranked number one in some territories for several weeks in 22 territories, where it swept the Israeli Academy Television Awards including Best Drama. It was a huge success on the local network HOT, and a second season has just been announced. Netflix is working on a U.S. version of the series.
Based on the true story of comedian Daniel Chen, the series follows Dean (Guy Menaster), a teenager who spends most of his teenage years in a juvenile detention center for drug trafficking and other crimes. Here he discovers comedic talent and the value of true friendship. Released decades later, he changes his name to Daniel Chen and becomes a famous stand-up comedian. Chen played his adult self and co-created the series.
Leshem said the non-actor cast was cast using the same method as the original Euphoria. Haytamo Falda, who plays Dean’s cellmate and unlikely best friend Zion Zorro, was discovered on the day of his boarding school audition and had no intention of even becoming an actor, but was charmed by the casting director.
The entire prison set was built within the scout camp of the National Youth Movement. Some scenes were filmed in real prisons for authenticity.
The show made its North American premiere at the Toronto Festival and won the Best Television Drama award at this year’s Berlin Selliencamp.
It is produced and co-financed by Shipour and Peter Chernin’s North Road Company, and produced by HOT and Tedy Productions.
The 53rd International Emmy Awards Gala will be held on November 24, 2025 in New York City.
Leshem spoke to Variety about the series, what it means to him, collaborations with fellow writers, and how his personal research on juvenile prisons influenced the show and perhaps what the future holds.
You said you created this show for the death of empathy. Daniel Chen’s stand-up act evokes empathy and also sees the world from the perspective of a young con man. Could you please comment?
Originally, I intended to make Bad Boy an American film, but Hollywood executives asked me to write Oz and Children, which was the last thing I wanted. I also didn’t want to manipulate the audience with the question of whether the main character would be killed or not survive. I wanted to be committed to the journey of love, even to characters that you’re angry at, like his mother, for example.
Similar to “Euphoria,” I was very drawn to exploring the impact of trauma and childhood mistakes on a person’s trajectory and ability to heal and conquer their own destiny. But what has changed for me since ‘Euphoria’ is that the human ability to feel sympathy and compassion for people who are different is disappearing, that it is an epidemic, and that I believe that I can change the world and drama is my only tool to fight it. I seem to be living in a whirlpool of all kinds of emotions as I write these days. It surprises me and also challenges me to be empathetic towards people, which my instincts prevent.
And do you see the much-needed empathy in the past and present Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a theme that runs through past works such as “No Man’s Land” and “Red Skies”?
I have been writing anti-war works and about peace since the day I started writing, but in the past two years I have lost many loved ones. So writing has often become my escapist tool these days, and I’m stuck at home in Boston with my kids and my keyboard, and I’m starting to look for light and solace.
Dean’s relationship with his cellmate Zorro is based on Dean seeing beyond Zorro’s reputation as a psychopathic murderer. Could you please comment?
Dean says everyone is a sociopathic murderer and turns to the boy everyone wants to kill. Dean is initially drawn to him like a moth to a flame out of destructive curiosity and a desire to know if Zorro is really who they say he is, but then he falls in love with him. Zoro is the first child to laugh at his humor.
Hagar, Amit, Daniel Amsel, yourself. You all have had great careers as writers, but what was it like working in the writers’ room and collaborating?
Hager is a really bold and brilliant filmmaker, and like me, he’s often pulled into Hollywood to make commercial hits, but together we’re always looking for ways to reinvent genres, break rules, and surprise. All the creators in the room brought a variety of voices that tried to surprise us. Today’s audiences have access to everything ever produced for screens at the click of a button, so there’s no point in recreating what’s already been done. We must try to create something that no one has ever created before. This is also the answer to AI in its current form.
How much time went into researching prison life into the script? Could there be other people you met during your two-week field trip that could create a different kind of show?
As a 20-year-old journalist, I spent two weeks in a prison with inmates aged 12 to 18, and I’ve been trying to write this story ever since. The first pitch for “Euphoria” was actually the voices of the inmates we met there, but all the executives insisted they weren’t ready for an audience, so they went in a different direction. Daniel was also a 13-year-old inmate when I arrived, but he became a comedian in prison, so his story is the birth of a comedian’s soul. In fact, there are some other equally powerful stories I encountered there that I would love to share with you.
Animation is used in some scenes. Can you comment on why you decided to use it?
What we really wanted was an unreliable narrator, emotional realism, but not 100 percent realism. Because the world is created according to how the boy’s filter remembers it. We also wanted to break genres, surprise, and let the imagination soar and flash with light and fun.
Season 2 of “Bad Boy” has been greenlit by HOT, can you give us a hint as to what’s to come?
This is a darkly comedic crime drama about the birth of a comedian with a dual personality, one who dreams of becoming a beloved comedian and one who wants to be the most notorious gangster. Therefore, this series also knows how to escape outside the prison.
Do you have any plans to participate in the script for the American version of Bad Boy?
I always want to be involved creatively and as a producer, but for film adaptations I really like bringing in great filmmakers who can put their own spin on the journey rather than repeating the journey I’ve already taken.
John Hopewell contributed to this article.
“Bad Boy”
