Oscar Isaac On The Challenges Of Keeping It Simple
Oscar Isaac On The Challenges Of Keeping It Simple
Oscar Isaac On The Challenges Of Keeping It Simple
In STAR WARS THE FORCE
The first time I met Oscar Isaac was on the set of Sucker Punch.
He was incredibly electric in person, Isaac Challenges and nothing on that set knew how that movie was going to turn out. At the time Sucker Punch was still a musical, and Isaac was veritably agitated about the song and cotillion figures. The coming time I met Oscar Isaac was at the jaunt for Star Wars The Force Awakens, and he was visibly exhausted,
and we conducted this whole interview while he laid on a settee with his shoes off.
In between these two meetings Isaac had come one of my favorite actors, delivering astonishing performance after astonishing performance, indeed in pictures I did not particularly like. His turns in Ex Machina and Inside Llewyn Davis alone are each- timekeepers, the kinds of performances that define an actor in the public knowledge ever.
Will his new part in Star Wars be as iconic?
Who knows! I attended this jaunt despite not having seen the movie. I have clearly canvassed filmmakers and actors without seeing their flicks-this is how Ridiculous-Con workshop, after each-but I also knew that I did not want to spend my ten twinkles with Isaac asking him questions about the movie that he wouldn’t answer, thanks to the cloak of secretiveness over the whole thing. What followed was a loose discussion that I clearly enjoyed further than trying to get secrets and spoilers from him.
And anyway, when you are talking to a dude spread out on a settee the whole vibe is just more relaxed.
One of my favorite quotations about the timber of a Star Wars movie comes from the first film, and it’s Harrison Ford saying,‘ Hear George, you can class this shit but you ca n’t say it!’I ’m fascinated by how an actor approaches this kind of movie when it comes to the slang and the crazy names. Do you have to sit around and get used to it, or have you grown up on enough technobabble that it works for you?
.It’s a little bit of both. I ’ve grown up with all of them,
so you grow up with a sense of that tone, but it’s another thing to be put on the spot and be told “ Okay, make me believe it.” Luckily JJ was really into keeping it loose. We got to extemporize a bit- gamble out some lines, add some lines. He was after a further messy quality. A quality that was a little bit more alive.
At the same time there’s commodity classic about it.
There is n’t a lot of irony in these effects. Granted, Han Solo is veritably sardonic, but it lacks cynicism. The real Star Wars tone has an innocence to the whole thing that’s veritably different from everything differently, especially in ultramodern movie timber. So yeah, it took me suddenly a little bit when I saw the lines for the first time and I allowed,‘Wow, this is kind of old academy.’But you go with it, because it’s unique.
An actor can frequently come into a movie and produce their character.
They can work with the director or the pen to produce a backstory, to get a sense of who this character is off the runner and outside the frame. But you ’re walking into a story where all of those pieces are going to be decided away, where Poe Dameron’s backstory is being told in novels and comics that have nothing to do with you. How much do you get to know that stuff in advance, and how important say-so do you get? Or are you just fastening on the scenes and trying to be in the moment?
This is one of the most surreal effects that happed.
After shooting I was storming about his history, intimately, and I allowed, I ’m from Guatemala, and in New Hope at the end, at the order form, it was shot in Guatemala, in Tikal, where you see the conglomerations as the vessels are leaving. So I allowed, how cool would it be if Poe was from Yavin, if he was a revolutionary fighter from Yavin? So I started saying that and, sure enough, I see a ridiculous book come out where me talking about my character background suddenly is in panels for a ridiculous book and it’s amazing. Lucasfilm got wind of what I was saying, and it got back to the generators of the ridiculous book, and they allowed,‘Yeah, that’s a enough cool idea! Why do n’t we do that?’
That’s not generally how that works on a movie this size.
Yeah, I do n’t suppose it frequently happens this way. But I suppose what people frequently do n’t understand-and I say this with all kindness and love to fanboy culture-we ’re making this shit up. It’s a creative field, we ’re not fucking bankers! We’re making it up. Just like the ridiculous books, when a new artist and a new pen comes on to a ridiculous book and they say,
‘What am I gonna do with this shit?
A new dude comes around and makes shit up … but there’s conviction behind those choices. You can have conviction. I can argue why I suppose this is the way it is, but that’s the cultural process. In a delightful way the cultural process of creating Poe has been done intimately where you’ve got this character and also I talk about where he’s been and (Lucasfilm) says,‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ and also this ridiculous book comes out that kind of changes it, because I said Poe would be at the order form, but that doesn’t time outright-
He wouldn’t be that old.
Yeah, he wouldn’t be that old. So he’s not at the order form, but his parents were at Yavin. It’s like we ’re uniting over this vast public field.
You ’re in another major wisdom fabrication movie, Ex Machina. It’s a different kind of wisdom fabrication movie-a important headier film with a lot of thematic stuff on its mind. Some would say that Star Wars is the contrary of that, that it’s all performance and fun. Do you suppose there’s further depth to Star Wars than some might believe?
I absolutely do. I suppose that’s the whole point of The Force. There’s a spiritual quality to it that separates it from everything differently. True, it’s not intellectual, but it’s spiritual. There’s this thing that you can tap into, there’s a light side to it and there’s a dark side to it, and it’s not material. I suppose that speaks to this craving we all have that there’s commodity lesser and deeper than you see and touch.
I know nothing about your character because they have n’t shown the movie, and I ’m sure you ’re not allowed to say that important, but from the marketing so far Poe looks like a prankish type. In the original flicks the original mischief, Han Solo, did n’t believe in The Force. What does Poe feel about it?
I can tell you that he believes in The Force fully. And he believes in The Resistance. And he’s committed to The Resistance … nearly recklessly.
You ’re good at giving answers that are suggestive but wo n’t get you killed by JJ! Is that a pain in the burro, the secretiveness? I ’m sure from the moment you were blazoned for this film, every time you ’re in public people are asking you about Star Wars. Does it come a drag having to keep it to yourself?
It’s fun. It’s like you buy a present for notoriety, you do n’t want to tell them what’s inside of it. You want them to open it. It’s that feeling.
Indeed though The Force Awakens has a lot of practical goods, you ’re not actually flying anX-Wing Fighter. You ’re sitting in a fake cockpit pretending to duel in front of a green screen. When does that come real for you, or is it always silly?
.
There were moments where I went there with it, but there were moments where it was tough to be in the cockpit and have veritablynon-specific effects to reply to. “ Okay, look right … commodity blew up!”
.
Was it on gimbals?
Yeah, it was moving around, they were shaking it, so that part was good. But it was veritably grueling.
I’ve no idea if Poe makes it out of this movie alive, but indeed if he does n’t there are always comics and books and videotape games to give us innumerous stories. You talked about that weird collaboration you had in creating the character-are you open to more traditional collaboration in these ways?
Sure. I did the voice in the Disney Perpetuity videotape game. It’s a more childlike interpretation of the character, but it was delightful.
