‘Innocence’ Actress Says the Cast Was Duped, Muhammad’s Character Was Named ‘George’ (Video)
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The anonymous actress told CNN she made $500 for a few days' shooting.
Photo Credit: CNN screenshot
The 80 cast and crew members employed by the makers of the movie that has provoked the Islamic world said told CNN on Wednesday that they were “grossly misled” about the film’s intent and expressed regrets over the violence the movie has been causing.
“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer,” they said in a statement to CNN about the movie, “Innocence of Muslims.”
“We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose,” continued the statement to CNN. “We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”
Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed Tuesday in Benghazi, Libya by a terrorist team taking advantage of the local outrage over the film, which ridicules the prophet Muhammad.
A casting call published in July 2011 in Backstage magazine and in other publications listed the movie title as “Desert Warrior,” and presented it as an “historical Arabian Desert adventure film.”
An actress in the film who asked not to be identified said the original script did not include a character named Prophet Muhammad.
The actress said she spoke on Wednesday with the producer, who is identified in the advertisement as Sam Bassiel. “He said he wrote the script because he wants the Muslims to quit killing,” she said. “I had no idea he was doing all this.”
The AP has since verified the man’s identity as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, age 55, a Coptic Christian.
“I would never be involved in a film to ever hurt or bring harm to anybody,” the bactress told CNN. “This makes me sick to my stomach to think that I was involved in that movie that brought death to somebody else.”
According to the actress, the character of Muhammad was named George during the shooting.
A member of the production staff who worked directly on the film and has a copy of the original script told CNN it does not mention Muhammad or Islam.
The Wall Street Journal identified the filmmaker as Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real estate developer. The Journal reported that, in its telephone interview with Bacile, he characterized his film as “a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam.”
“Islam is a cancer,” he told the newspaper. “The movie is a political movie. It’s not a religious movie.”
“This guy is totally anonymous. At this point no one can confirm he holds an Israeli citizenship and even if he did we are not involved,” ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. “No Israeli institution, government department or office has any involvement in this. This guy acted on his own behalf.”
Consultant Steve Klein told CNN he worked with Bacile on the movie and said the filmmaker had gone into hiding.
James Horn, a friend who has worked with Mr. Klein in anti-Muslim activities for several years, told the NY Times that he believed Mr. Klein was involved in providing technical assistance to the film and advice on the script. Mr. Horn said he called Mr. Klein on Wednesday. “I said, ‘Steve, did you do this?’ He said, ‘Yep.’ ”
“He’s very depressed, and he’s upset,” Klein told CNN on Wednesday regarding Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. “I talked to him this morning, and he said that he was very concerned for what happened to the ambassador.”
Klein said it was not the film’s fault that protests had turned bloody.
An online trailer for the film depicts Muslims very much the way Nazi propaganda movies depicted Jews and their plot to “conquer the world.”
Muhammad is shown as a womanizer, child molester and bloodied killer.
The movie, which was posted in July on YouTube, got more notice after Egyptian television aired segments and anti-Islam activists, including Egyptian-born Coptic Christian Morris Sadek, promoted it online.
Florida Qoran burning pastor Terry Jones said he had been contacted to help distribute the film.
“The film is not intended to insult the Muslim community, but it is intended to reveal truths about Muhammad that are possibly not widely known,” Jones told CNN.
“It is very clear that God did not influence him (Muhammad) in the writings of the Qoran,” said Jones, who blames Muslims’ thin skins, rather than the film, for the riots and murders.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Tibbi Singer is a veteran contributor to publications such as Israel Shelanu and the US supplement of Yedioth. Invite Tibbi to visit your blog. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of The Jewish Press
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Hey. Somebody stood up for Western values and show the real face of ideology that called Islam.
Are you out of your mind?
The guy makes a film that is as bad as the Mubarak regime's television version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, deceives the actors in the film, deceives the world by using a pseudonym and claiming to be Israeli thus making sure Jews get blamed for this monstrosity, and contributes to increasing the hatred towards Jews and non-Jewish Americans who had nothing to do with the film. The guy is a rasha and I can't believe anyone would defend him!
We're only now finding out. But you are right, this is a bad guy not worth defending. I think this entire movie is an Islamist setup.
@daniel teeboom i beg your pardon but you don't know muslims and you certainly don't know Islam… No matter what happens we don't insult God, our beloved Prophet or for that matter anyone thats what our religion preaches…. Our religion promotes peace NOT violence and we are potrayed badly enough that we don't need another excuse to make ourselves look bad plus the media all around the world have done enough….. Please don't make such comments as there is already a lot of hatred and you guys are making it worst by the baseless comments and allegations.
oh but i do know muslims – lets see honour killing,marrying little girls, raping children and animals, beheadings,stoning and all on video for others to learn how to do it better and that you do even to your own muslims. so far so good. would you like me to continue???? baseless comments. ok go the internet open up any page about jihad,muslims and see what is out there justifying such violence. if you feel anythign for your nation and want hashem not to pour out his entire wrath on you lot, you need to start praying for some changes in the way you folks view peace. peace means no more dead bodies and chopped of heads.
Ruth Cohen Harif yeah thats how we are potrayed…. i can disguise my self like a christan or jew or hindu and do the same things…… Islam doesnt support honour killing, marrying little girls, beheading, raping children and animals etc true Islam is not this and in todays world you can not just believe what you see on TV or internet… if you want to know what true Islam is and what a true muslim is like go and do comparative religion study you will easily know!!!! Jihad in true sense is struggle between right and wrong its not about killing ppl… Islam doesnt even support sucides so i m not really sure if you know Islam coz you just know what is put in ur head anyways stay blessed and happy…
They can't even begin to identify with the freedoms of expression that we have in our country. These filmakers would be slaughtered in their country.
@ ross..free speech doesnt allow you or anyone to hurt the feelings of millions,it doesnt mean for the sake of free speech…me and you go out on the street and hurt the feelings of people and play with there emotions….
Its the same how anti-semetric law works.
I think the people have right to know more about this film maker and what if any truth or lies he may have. Reporters should go back to Cerrtios, CA at his home located near Frontier Park on the 12600 block of Park Street. south of 166th Street and Bloomfield Avenue until they get all the answers. This is also part of free speech.
@JEAN…free speech doesnt allow you or anyone to hurt the feelings of millio ns,it doesnt mean for the sake of free speech…me and you go out on the street and hurt the feelings of people and play with there emotions….
Its the same how anti-semetric law works,
oh really so its okay for iran to threaten to wipe out all in israel, that dont hurt our feelings – but then you are not complaining about that are you honey
Thats state vs state.and i am sure majority of the people of the both country wants to live in peace..I am not religious but for sure about this movie, is crude, both aesthetically and ideologically. It was, presumably, intended to offend, and it is having that effect…A majority of the people are defending this for the sake of freedom of speech,,but for the sake of freedom of speech it does not allows me or any one to hurt millions of people around the globe to there feelings and there Emotions..it also arises the Question why to kill for the sake of this movie,which i personaly condems,bad and good elemets do exsists in every society…It’s a bad viral video, one of the innumerable pieces of flotsam that wash up daily on the Internet’s endless shore. Sadly, when translated into Arabic and stripped from its cultural context, “The Innocence of Muslims” seems like more than the sophomoric trifle it is……..
And – to top it all – an Israeli-American Jew was originally named as the one responsible for it….
she is pissing in her pants from fear. and no matter what she says the muslims are not going to forgive her ever. she better pack up and hide in china for a very long time.
Ruth, she is a potential convert out of fear about a murderous cult that promises an unrealistic peace to those who convert and a realistic murder to those who do not convert. As you can see there are some here who are of the illusion that one should not hurt the feelings of those who want to kill everyone who do not follow their beliefs.
Such films only instigates hatred among the people of different sects. The USA must hang that person because of whom their ambassador was killed. NO doubt Muhammad PBUH was the last prophet of ALLAH.
and the movies made by muslims while they are chopping of heads, and killing and stoning their own woman,friends and of course the infidels. what do you want with these movies.
These are strayed people. They have no basic knowledge of Islam. Islam says "killing an innocent is like killing all humans'". These so called muslims are not literate. Stoning of women is the punishment for loose character women in Islam.
navaid – please dont insult my intelligence. muslims kill women all the time who are perfectly innocent, the only ones with loose characters is the men who cant stop raping the children and marrying the little girls. what is not okay with muslim is your violent book the koran.the way that you folks behave is so shameful.violent and ugly. its really sickening the way you treat your own families, your own muslims you kill them too with no cares at all. your religion is full of hatred and kiilling and bloodshed.you are a shame to the human race
my dear friend ruth Cohen, u are completely unaware about the teachings of Islam. Islam means peace. before talking about any book or religion, u first must read it. I'm not denying the fact that there are bad eggs among muslims as well but u must not blame or ridicule a religion just because some people have caused unrest belonging to that religion. U can't decide the religion from the acts of an individual or handful of people. I invite u to plz first read what does Qur'an says then you'll be in a position to argue. Hope you'll take some time out to study Islam. May GOD gives u guidance
this can become a very serious matter to Muslims all over the world bcoz we can ignore anything but in religion no matter whoever is he or she they should get punishment no1 got rights to say anything 2any religion and hurts people ego especially a saint like pbhu…
If they show reaction for their love (Prophet), they are terrorist and if they show reaction against Qadaffi…they are rebels……this is the double standards of MEDIA.
FREEDOM OF REACTION must have to be given like freedom of expression..
And what if Iran could be behind it all? What you in an analysis would or could eventually discover or uncover is quite some loose ends, but when you put every loose end together into one whole picture, then there is only one nation that benefits the most of it all, and that is Iran. You would perhaps say or state that it can´t be possible no matter what you would think of the Iranian regime because as people say the film is anti-Islam and against the prophet, but are honorable muslims not saying that extremists don´t have the right to speak in name of Islam for they defile it in their view even worse than some in the west do? And so, could it not be possible because criminals may after all say and do just to deceive while in the darkness of the room just do that what they publicly would deny using the pretext of them being muslims and as such not possible!
They after all have hit with this film in first instance quite forcefully at the Jewish people, and afterwards when people start noticing that something was not right with their first assumption it becomes a coptic Christian resulting in the coptic Christians of Egypt being threatened while the film is supposed to have been made in the States. You would hit with a premeditated orchestrated making of such a film the entire western civilization in one single propaganda hit reminiscent of how Nazi Germany in their time did albeit I think not that extreme. They probably deceive thus the actors and as a result the actors probably honestly deceive without the intent to do so the western world even more whereas the result is that both intentional and non-intentional deceptions give rise to an even bigger deceptive active audience, namely the more extremist elements within the muslim world who do behave like a herd that acts not by thinking by themselves anymore, but by what their master(s) do tell them how to behave and to act accordingly to their wishes, even orders stemming from Iran for we all do know by the behavior of the muslim extremist themselves that they are clearly people who are in truth just only the slaves of their human masters and have no control over themselves anymore whatsoever!
Can they ever return being human again is as such the big question? And is it right to let them give the keys to our homes out of fear and thus passiveness very well knowing that doing something against it can only be successful when hitting the master(s), putting an end to their dominion over humans they always have regarded as animals in truth, even their muslim brothers and sisters who they deceptively let them believe that they are true believers.
Hopeful the truth will come out very soon on this, but the evil has in any case be done nonetheless with a clear lesson to the western media, namely before you try in your blindness and hatred and politically (correctness) motivated news stories defile a people, you better first check thoroughly if you won´t be the puppet slave of an even worser enemy than you are to yourself, an enemy that won´t show remorse no matter how many times you would bow for him and be his slave!
The muslim extremists do show by themselves that this enemy has no respect for the sanctity of life nor for any life in this world and beyond for that matter no matter what he would be saying or do to deceive and let you falsely think otherwise so he could keep on proceeding with his master plan.
I give suggestion to all jews peoples they should meet with true muslims face to face then they should realize that how much Muslims peoples are peace minded, caring, respect other religion, international media shows wrong picture, media really playing double role, you are really killing innocent mind of jews youngest and children,