Tomer Sisley

Tomer Sisley (born Tomer Gazit; תומר סיסלי; born 14 August 1974) is an Israeli and French actor and comedian.

Early and personal life
Born in West Berlin, West Germany, to Israeli-born parents who had relocated for his father's job as a research scientist in dermatology. His mother is also a dermatologist. His parents met as schoolmates in Ramat Gan, Israel, and were childhood sweethearts. His father's family has roots in Lithuania and today's Belarus, while his mother is of Yemenite descent.

His parents separated when he was five years old. At 9 years of age, he left Berlin to live with his father in southern France, where his father was offered a position. He is fluent in German, Hebrew, French, and English. He attended an English-speaking school, and then attended the bi-lingual Centre international de Valbonne in Sophia Antipolis near Nice, France.

Sisley resides in Paris with his family, and has taught Hebrew to his three children. He spends about a month a year in Israel where most of his relatives reside, and has cousins and uncles who were in the Israeli Special Forces. He is a horse rider, practiced 5 years of Krav Maga, and trains in jiujitsu and boxing. He is also a helicopter pilot, and also races boats, does skydiving, paragliding, and extreme skiing.

Comedy
Sisley performed six years of stand-up comedy. In 2003 he was the first French stand-up comedian to win the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Canada, the largest comedy festival in the world.

Scandal
In 2019, it was brought to light that Tomer was using material taken from American comedians. He admitted "having copied between '20-30 per cent' of his gags."

Film
Among his first films were the Tunisian fictional film Bedwin Hacker (2003), the comedy drama Virgil (2005), the French romantic comedy-drama Toi et moi (2006), the French crime film Truands (2007), and the French action thriller Largo Winch (2008). In 2009, Sisley won the Most Promising Newcomer title at the Étoiles d'or French awards for his acting in Largo Winch.

In 2011, Sisley accepted the leading part in a low-budget French thriller film Sleepless Night. The movie was bought by Tribeca Productions, Robert De Niro's distribution company, and Warner Brothers bought the rights for a remake. The film showed at the Tribeca Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Rome Film Festival.

In the French action thriller Largo Winch II (2011), Sisley performed a fight while skydiving from a plane without a parachute. He does all of his own stunts. Among his next films were the American comedy We're the Millers (2013), the French costume drama and adventure film Angélique (2013), and the Israeli-French docudrama political thriller Rabin, the Last Day (2015).

In the American thriller web television series Messiah (2020) Sisley plays Israeli Shin Bet intelligence officer Aviram Dahan.

Filmography

 * 1996 : Studio Sud (TV) as Nico
 * 1998 : L'Immortel (TV) as Felix
 * 2003 : Dédales by René Manzor as Malik
 * 2003 : Bedwin Hacker by Nadia el Fani as Chams, a Tunisian-French journalist
 * 2005 : Virgil by Mabrouk el Mechri as Dino Taliori
 * 2006 : Toi et moi by Julie Lopes-Curval as Farid
 * 2006 : The Nativity Story by Catherine Hardwicke as Tax Collector
 * 2007 : Truands by Frédéric Schoendoerffer as Larbi, a Moroccan gangster
 * 2008 : Largo Winch by Jérôme Salle as Largo Winch
 * 2011 : Largo Winch II by Jérôme Salle as Largo Winch
 * 2011 : Sleepless Night by Frédéric Jardin as Vincent, a police detective
 * 2013 : We're the Millers by Rawson Marshall Thurber as Pablo Chacón, a Mexican drug lord
 * 2013 : Kidon by Emmanuel Naccache as Daniel
 * 2013 : Angélique by Ariel Zeitoun as Marquis de Plessis-Bellière, a French aristocrat
 * 2015 : Rabin, the Last Day by Amos Gitai as Rabin's driver
 * 2018-2023 : Balthazar as Raphaël Balthazar, a forensic pathologist
 * 2019 : Lucky Day as Jean-Jacques
 * 2020: Messiah by James McTeigue and Kate Woods as Aviram Dahan, an Israeli Shin Bet officer
 * 2021: Don't Look Up as Adul Grelio
 * 2023: Vortex as Ludovic Béguin
 * 2023: BDE as Dany Frydman
 * 2023: Comme Mon Fils as Victor

Wins

 * 2009 Étoiles d'Or Awards for Best Male Newcomer for his role in Largo Winch.
 * 2009 Rémy Julienne Award of Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films.