Oscar Isaac is a Guatemalan-born Juilliard graduate who blew away industry insiders with his first leading screen role eight years ago, as the title character in Ethan Coen and Joel Coen‘s film Inside Llewyn Davis, and then two years after that shot to international superstardom as resistance flyboy Poe Dameron in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first of three installments of the Star Wars franchise in which he has appeared. Identified by The New York Times as “one of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century (so far),” he has also won raves from critics and audiences alike with his work on the stage; on the small screen in the 2015 limited series Show Me a Hero, for which he won a Golden Globe; and on the big screen in projects such as Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive in 2011, J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year in 2014 and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina in 2015. But in 2021, he is having a year unlike any other, with a standout turn as the lead in Paul Schrader’s film The Card Counter; as a key supporting player in Denis Villeneuve’s fantasy epic Dune; and as one-half of Hagai Levi’s two-hander five-part HBO limited series Scenes from a Marriage. He recently discussed his life and career on The Hollywood Reporter‘s awards podcast.
Where were you born and raised and what did your folks do for a living?
I was born in Guatemala and raised in South Florida, and my mom took care of us and my dad is a doctor.
You attended Juilliard, a wonderful school that has produced many great actors, but it’s pretty focused on stage work. Did you always aspire to have a screen career?
I wanted to make movies. That was my first love, watching and making movies with my dad and his video camera. I got really into theater and the tradition of theater — I really loved the idea of being a more of a classic actor. But movies were my first love.
You graduated in May 2005 and hit the ground running in a way that not many people have — leads in two Shakespeare productions at The Public Theater in three years and film roles in Robin Hood, W.E., Drive and The Bourne Legacy. But the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis took things to a different level. How did it cross your radar?
I had read that they were going to do this movie about the folk scene, and they were and are my favorite filmmakers, so I just said to my reps at the time, “Get me in for this. Whatever you can do, just get me in. I’ll make a video, send a video, whatever I can. Please get this to someone that can make a decision to get me at least in the room.” Then I went off to go do a film in Pittsburgh, and I was playing a lot of music, and I was writing a lot at the time. I was playing a lot of open mics, not in preparation, just because I didn’t have a very big part in the film, so to pass the time I would go do that. When I got back to New York, they were really starting to get the ball rolling with auditions. Scott Burns, who was a buddy of mine, knows T Bone Burnett. I recorded myself singing “Hang Me,” and I knew that the film was about Dave Van Ronk, so I learned how to play in that style, and I sang the song, and I sent it to Scott and said, “Can you get this to T Bone?” He was able to get it to T Bone, and the casting director got it at the same time. T Bone was like, “This is pretty good. I’m going to show it to the Coens.” Then I found out that I was going to get to go in for the Coens. At that point, serendipitously, I was doing another really small, tiny little indie movie, and there was a guy that was basically playing a drunk old guy at the bar. In between takes, he picked up a guitar and started playing exactly in this style, and he was an amazing guitar player. I said, “Hey, you’re amazing. My name’s Oscar.” He’s like, “Hey, my name’s Eric.” His name’s Eric Frandsen. I was like, “I’ve got this audition coming up. It’s kind of based on Dave Van Ronk. Have you ever heard Dave Van Ronk?” He’s like, “Yeah, I played with Dave,” and he’s like, “Come over to my place on MacDougal Street, and I’ll give you guitar lessons.” So I started hanging out with Eric a ton and playing guitar and smoking weed and drinking, and he would play me all these old records. This was prep to go to the audition; it was just incredible that it worked out that way. So I learned three or four songs, even though I just had to play the one song. Before I went for the Coens, I went in for the casting director. At first, I just thought it was a direct Dave Van Ronk movie. He was a six foot three, 300-pound Swede, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is never going to happen.” So I go in, and I saw a picture of Ray LaMontagne, so I said to the casting director, I was like, “Oh, cool, man, so is he a reference,” and they’re like, “Oh, no. He just came in. He killed it.” I was like, “Oh my God, no way.” Not to call him out, I’m sure he was amazing, but, anyway, all of my confidence just deflated in that moment. But luckily, I got to come in for the Coens, and they were so great, and they laughed so much and were just so generous. I remember I was like, “I think I got this.” Then a month later, Joel called me and said, “Hey, I’d love for you to do this movie.”
Did you immediately appreciate how big of a difference it was going to make in your career?
Yeah. I had never done a lead role in a movie! This was the first one, and what it was asking of me was just everything that I loved, tonally, everything.
The next year you starred in A Most Violent Year as a heating-oil salesman in a Macbeth-like marriage with his wife, played by Jessica Chastain. You and Jessica knew each other at Juilliard, but had you ever actually acted together?
No, we’d never done anything together. We just knew each other really well, and then she really championed me for the role. I remember when I met J.C., it was at Telluride, and I was preparing to go shoot Ex Machina, so I had a shaved head and a huge beard. I think he had a hard time trying to picture Abel inside of that, but I was like, “Trust me, the hair can come off and the hair can grow back.”
Speaking of Ex Machina, in which you play a Dr. Frankenstein-like character, you have called it “one of my most treasured experiences.” Why?
Because of the relationship that I cultivated with Alex Garland, who has remained a really close friend of mine. His mind is so incredible, and it was the first time where a director/writer and I worked so closely together on something to make sure that every single angle of the way you look at it made sense and cohered.
That year, you also did something that you had avoided doing in the early part of your career, television, with the limited series Show Me a Hero, in which you played the mayor of Yonkers at a time of heightened racial tensions there. You ended up winning a Golden Globe for the performance.
That was a really tough one. The limited series is this weird hybrid of movie and TV, and it’s still such a strange animal because there’s no set rules to it. But the one thing that’s for sure is the workload is just massive. You’re doing so much material in such a short amount of time that, in some ways, it feels like it doesn’t quite have the focus or just the time that film does.
How did your involvement with Star Wars come about? The first installment in which you appeared, The Force Awakens, also came out that year…
J.J. and Kathy wanted to sit with me. They asked me to fly me to Paris to talk to me about a role. So I went out there and they’re like, “He sets up the whole movie and then he dies spectacularly.” I was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah. It’s bit of a bummer because I feel like I’ve done that so much, where I set it up for the main character and then I die spectacularly.” Then Kathy, to her credit, was like, “Yeah, you did that for us in the Bourne movie, and I was like, “Yeah.” Then J.J. started thinking about it and he’s like, “Oh, I think I’ve figured out a way for him to survive.” Then the rest was history.
After that, you were a producer for the first time on Operation Finale, in which you also starred as the man leading the mission to get Eichmann. You played Gauguin in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate. And you played Hamlet on stage.
I mean, it was kind of crazy. My mom passed. I got married. Eugene was born. I did Life Itself. I did Hamlet. I did Operation Finale. I flew to do Gauguin. That was all in the same year. I really got burnt out.
2021 has been another crazy year for you. Let’s start with Paul Schrader’s film The Card Counter.
This is a man alone in a room, one of a series of portraits like that that he’s done, and I just was thrilled to be able to add to that series of portraits. It’s in the script, to be honest. He serves up everything that I want as an actor to experience, which is the subconscious at work. It just ignites my curiosity in such a spectacular way. I went back to mask work — I went back to Juilliard — because Paul talks about how this is a man wearing a mask and his mask is his occupation, but I thought to myself, “Why not take that literally? What is it like to wear a mask? This is someone that works with his hands and cards, and what if I take that aspect of him away because he’s hiding and he’s in this purgatory and he’s created this shell?” So I worked a lot on the physical transformation that occurs and let that be my guide of where he’s at. And I worked on penmanship because I knew he is a guy that uses his journal. I wanted to feel someone that’s very controlled, so I took some courses on cursive writing again, which I hadn’t done since grade school, and I’ve kept it up since because I just find it quite meditative. Worked with cardistry experts to just really feel like I knew my way around a deck of cards. It never ended. I really loved constructing this character that has this kind of volcanic nature inside of him that’s covered in this icy exterior.
Then there is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which I understand you lobbied to be part of?
Yeah. I wrote to him when I heard he was doing it, and I said, “Hey, I’m a big fan of the book, just letting you know,” and he said, “Oh, interesting. Okay, good to know.” Then, years later, he sent me the script. I was familiar with it. I’d read the book. Obviously, I didn’t know what the script was going to be like. Funny enough, when he sent it to me, he wasn’t sure what part exactly. I think he had a sense, but then I looked at it and it just was clear that that was a role for me.
Finally, with Scenes from a Marriage, another limited series, you reunited with Jessica Chastain. It’s mostly just the two of you going back and forth. Has there ever been anything else in your career not on the stage that was even close to that?
No. That’s what made it feel like stage. It felt like we were doing a play. At the same time, it had the intimacy of film and it had the episodic nature of TV. It was such a weird combo of all those things, and wholly unique and special because of it.
Source: HollyWood
