Podell, 31, was born in Tel Aviv and lived on Moshav Gan Haim until age two, when his father’s job with a Scandinavian shipping company took the family to the United States for a year and then to Hong Kong. When he was eight, his family returned to the U.S. and settled in New York’s Westchester County. Podell attended high school in Armonk, N.Y. with Sean Maher, who also became an actor (on the TV series ‘Firefly’) and introduced Podell to his wife.

In 1997, the same year he graduated from Dartmouth College and moved to Los Angeles, Podell scored one of his first acting jobs during a visit to Israel - an Israeli TV commercial for Elite Gold iced coffee.

His subsequent credits include the MTV series ‘Undressed,’ the part of Al Pacino’s son in ‘The Insider,’ and recurring roles on ‘Everwood’ and ‘Charmed.’ In September, Podell appeared in an episode of ‘Navy NCIS’ as a rogue Mossad agent working with Iran to sabotage his former commander, played by Eli Danker (Ran Danker’s father).