One of the strengths of “The Floaters,” a Jewish summer camp movie from director Rachel Israel, is its ensemble cast. “Nobody Wants This” star Jackie Tohn, Sarah Podemski of “Reservation Dogs” and Tony-nominee Aya Cash gel together as the (kinda) intrepid staff of Camp Daveed whose objects are to find themselves, help the kids find themselves, save the camp and win Maccabiah against rival Camp Barak. Meanwhile, millennial favorite Seth Green plays the irritating, peacocking director of Camp Barak.
Excitingly, the roster of “The Floaters” actors includes a ton of up-and-coming Jewish talent like Judah Lewis.
Here are 18 things to know about him.
1. He was born on May 22, 2001 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
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2. He’s a Gemini!
3. Judah has Irish heritage on his father’s side and Russian Jewish on his mother’s.
4. His parents Hara and Mark are acting teachers! They would take him to their drama school and theater while he was a kid. Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t until later that Judah caught the acting bug.
5. Judah grew up celebrating Hanukkah with his family. “I have very fond memories of incredibly competitive dreidel games,” he tells Hey Alma.
6. Like a lot of Jews, Judah finds meaning in his Jewish identity through food. “I love when my mom makes her Bubbe’s recipes,” he says. “I’m particularly fond of the mandel bread. Since I never got to meet my great-grandmother, it helps me feel connected to my roots.”
7. Asa Butterfield’s performance in the movie “Hugo” inspired Judah to pursue acting.
“I remember being so taken by his performance,” he told People Magazine in 2018. “I remember watching it and looking at his performance like, ‘I want to do that.’”
8. The biggest piece of advice Judah has received from his parents about working in the film industry is “to stay humble and grounded.”
“All the projects and the working is just secondary to being a kind, gracious human,” he told People.
9. Judah has also received acting advice from fellow Jewish actor Jake Gyllenhaal. The pair starred opposite together on Judah’s first big film, “Demolition.”
He recounted later, “It was one of our first days filming, and I had a couple of scenes in the film which were just like pages of me talking. I remember [Gyllenhaal] was like, ‘Okay, check this out. Whenever you learn your lines, learn them as fast as humanly possible. Like, no matter what, memorize them as quickly as you can and then get faster and faster and faster and keep doing that until they call action. And when they call action, slow it down, and it’s impossible to forget your lines.’”
10. In addition to Jake Gyllenhaal, Judah has worked alongside stars like Jenna Ortega, Leslie Bibb, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Naomi Watts and Helen Hunt.
11. You lowkey have to watch him attempting to wrestle this baby elephant:
12. You might recognize Judah as Cole from Netflix horror-comedy “The Babysitter,” and its sequel “The Babysitter: Killer Queen.”
13. He’s in good company on the list of Jewish actors who have been in Christmas movies. In 2018 and 2020, Judah starred as Teddy Pierce in “The Christmas Chronicles” films.
14. In “The Floaters,” Judah plays Jonah, a skeptical misfit at Camp Daveed who has never connected to his Jewish heritage before.
15. Through filming “The Floaters,” Judah got to have the Jewish summer camp experience he never had growing up. “One of my favorite parts of filming this was getting to vicariously live through my character and have an amazing camp experience,” he tells us. “It helped that we were all living at the camp, so it really felt like we were campers.”
16. One unexpected challenge of filming “The Floaters”? The bears! We’ll let you hear about it in Judah and director Rachel Israel’s own words:
17. One of Judah’s favorite memories from “The Floaters” is playing Gaga. He explains, “It was such an incredibly fun game, and I can’t believe I had never played it before.”
18. One day, Judah hopes to get into directing.
