During a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career, Oscar Isaac was confronted about cracking up Pedro Pascal when they were on stage together. Speaking as part of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Career Conversations program, the actor was asked about the time the two were performing in the 2005 Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of “Beauty and the Father.” In his own Career Conversation in 2023, Pascal called Isaac “the worst” for trying to make him break character while on stage together. “He’s a nightmare!” Pascal joked, saying Isaac — who was playing a ghost — would creep into his periphery. “You’re doing this super serious scene and you start to feel his face coming up right over here…”
Asked for his side of the story, Isaac proudly admitted it was true. “I was the ghost of Federico Garcia Lorca, so nobody could see me on stage. And so, because nobody could see me, I could do whatever I wanted on stage,” he said. “It was so fun. I mean, you know, it’s these long runs. You got to keep it fresh somehow. But then it would always backfire because I would start laughing at him laughing at me. It was very dumb.”
Asked if he had any second thoughts about it, Isaac quickly responded: “No regrets. I would do it again.”
Isaac was talking to a packed audience of fellow SAG-AFTRA actors about his impressive career, which includes his current starring role in Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” now streaming on Netflix. Though he portrays the tortured scientist, the actor says the movie was a blast to make. In fact, Isaac says the process was so joyful, “I got scared.” At one point he pulled Del Toro aside. “I said, ‘We’re having so much fun doing this, and it feels like light, and I’m a little bit afraid that I’m doing something wrong because it’s like, I feel like it should be heavier! I don’t know why it’s not.’”
Issac said his director explained it simply. “He’s like, ‘Look, you’re playing somebody that has no doubts. And that feels pretty good.’”
Isaac touched on his upcoming projects, including the second season of “Beef” for Netflix, which he promised contains “lots of good gags” and reunites him with his frequent costar Carey Mulligan. “There’s nobody better than her,” he praised. “They say kids parallel play, you know, like, you know, kids play next to each other and they don’t actually play with each other, but they’re playing next to each other. And then every once in a while, it’s like a big learning development when they start to play with each other. And that’s what it feels like playing with Carrie. Just, everything’s there. Nothing has to be pulled. It’s amazing.”
This marks their third collaboration together. “We’ve met at these very pivotal moments in our lives,” he continued. “For ‘Drive,’ we were just kind of working new on the scene, just starting out wide-eyed.” Three years later, on “Inside Llewyn Davis,” they had just met their respective spouses. “Now, meeting again, we’ve I’ve got two little kids. She’s got three kids. Just to have that history and to be able to, to to play with that in this way, it’s been really it’s great. I’m really excited about it.”
Isaac also revealed that he has a new film making the festival rounds — a documentary called “King Hamlet” made by his wife, artist and filmmaker Elvira Lynn. It was shot in 2017 when Isaac was doing “Hamlet” at the Public Theater. He noted they didn’t start out intending to make a film. “She picked up the camera and little did we know all this life that was going to happen at the same time.”
Isaac elaborated that in February of that year, his mother passed away. In March, he and Lind married and in April their first son was born. Then in May he began rehearsals for the epic four-hour production of “Hamlet,” one of the most demanding stage roles in history. “She didn’t know what else to do other than try to process it through filming, through some work,” he revealed. “I said to her, ‘Look, you can film it, [but] this might not ever see the light of day.’ So she filmed it and she put it away and about a year and a half ago, she took out those hard drives and started looking at it and piecing some things together.” Isaac was encouraging of the process. “She, with her great editor, put it together and made this really beautiful document of that time and what it is to deal with life and try to create art and try to have a family.”
As Isaac generally doesn’t reveal much about his personal life, he admitted the experience was unique for him. “It’s very vulnerable, putting that out there. But it also feels like a band making a record movie; it’s about a time and a place and a group of people creating something together.”
Isaac also talked about taking his whole family to the premiere of “Frankenstein.” He didn’t expect them to sit through the entire movie considering the subject matter, but thought they could check out part of the beginning. At first, his 8-year-old son was into the film because he speaks Danish — the same language used at the start of the movie. But then when Isaac was just getting on screen to do his monologue, “He’s like, ‘OK, can we, can we leave?’”
Issac laughed and continued, “And I was like, ‘You should watch this part — you know, this is really good.’ And so, he starts watch again. And he’s like, ‘Can we leave now? It’s boring.’”
But the film clearly had an impact. Not long ago, Lind told Isaac said that their son was upset with his little brother — and quoted a scene from early in the movie. “He said that ‘It was all sunshine and rainbows before he came, and when he came it’s been all clouds and storms.’”
Isaac added, “It was like a Keyser Soze moment — I’m like, ‘That’s a line from the movie!’ He’s an actor! Oh no!”
Watch the full conversation from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation below.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/zycTc-YEFno?si=u28ZZeZvSTz95W7d
