Emmanuelle Chriqui, from ‘Entourage’ to ‘The Zohan’

Emmanuelle Chriqui, who recently rose to fame with the HBO hit “Entourage,” takes on the role of AdamSandler’s love interest in Columbia Pictures’ new comedy, “You Don’t Mess with The Zohan.”  The film is the story of Zohan, an elite Israeli Mossad agent who fakes his own death so he can leaveIsrael and anonymously move to New York to pursue his dream of being a hair stylist.

Chriqui (pronounced “shreeky”) plays Dalia, a Palestinian immigrant to New York, who owns a hair salon and gives Zohan his first job in the U.S. “She gives him a chance even though at first she thinks it’s a really bad idea. He ends up helping her and making her business flourish.”

“He’s a dream,” she says of Sandler. “He’s the nicest guy in Hollywood. He’s got the biggest heart, and he just commands an enormous amount of respect and you can see why audiences love him.”

Flush with ethnic stereotypes, “You Don’t Mess with The Zohan” satirizes the strife between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Though the film is a comedy, Chriqui says it has a profound message. “I want audiences to have the thought of, ‘Yeah, we can coexist.’ That’s what I want them to walk away with.”  But she insists she doesn’t want to be political. “I came to it from a creative place, not a heavy political one,” she says.

Chriqui, who has French and Moroccan heritage, says that she looked to the influence of her mother to play Dalia. “My mother was a very fiery Moroccan woman, so I tapped into that energy to play a strong Palestinian woman. Even though Morocco’s in North Africa, the customs are very similar to those throughout the Arab world.”

That she’s Jewish playing Palestinian raised a few eyebrows, she says. “People are right away like, ‘Oh, my God, really?’ (But) I’m an actress first and foremost. So if I have the ability to portray someone Palestinian, Italian or Spanish, I’m going to do it. It’s about the character.”

To prepare for the role, Chriqui spent time with a dialogue coach to master her character’s accent. “The Palestinian actors on the set told me that I had a pretty good Palestinian accent, which I was very glad to hear. I worked hard to get it right.”

Chriqui, who up till now has been best known as Kevin Connolly’s girlfriend on “Entourage,” is prepared for a profile boost if “Zohan” is a success. “If the film does what Adam Sandler films do, there’s a strong possibility that most anonymity will vanish,” says Chriqui. “The only way I look at it is, ‘Great, I wonder what roles I’m going to get to do now?’ It just excites me on a career level.”

Opening soon across the Philippines on August 6, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.