Oscar Isaac

American actor (born 1979)

Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is an American actor. Recognized for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his generation by Vanity Fair in 2017 and one of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century by The New York Times in 2020. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2016, he featured on Time list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Born in Guatemala, Isaac moved with his family to the US while an infant. As a teenager, he joined a punk band, acted in plays and made his film debut in a minor role. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Isaac was a character actor in films for much of the 2000s. His first major role was that of Joseph in the biblical drama The Nativity Story (2006), and he won an AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying political leader José Ramos Horta in the Australian film Balibo (2009). After gaining recognition for playing supporting parts in Robin Hood (2010) and Drive (2011), Isaac had his breakthrough with the eponymous role of a singer in the musical drama Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Isaac's career progressed with leading roles in the crime drama A Most Violent Year (2014), the thriller Ex Machina (2015) and the superhero film X Men: Apocalypse (2016). He became a global star with the role of Poe Dameron in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019). Isaac starred in the historical drama Operation Finale (2018)—which marked his first venture into production—the science fiction films Annihilation (2018) and Dune (2021), the crime drama The Card Counter (2021) and the animated superhero film Spider Man: Across the Spider Verse (2023). On television, Isaac was the lead in three miniseries: Show Me a Hero (2015), in which his portrayal of Nick Wasicsko won him a Golden Globe Award, Scenes from a Marriage (2021), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Moon Knight (2022). His stage work includes title roles in Romeo and Juliet (2007), Hamlet (2017) and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (2023).

Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada was born on March 9, 1979, in Guatemala City to a Guatemalan mother, María Eugenia Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban father, Óscar Gonzalo Hernández Cano, a pulmonologist. He has an older sister, climate scientist Nicole, and a younger brother, journalist Mike. Isaac's family immigrated to the US when he was five months old, and they frequently moved around the country, living in Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami, where they eventually settled. He speaks English and Spanish. Isaac attended the private grade school Westminster Christian School in southern Florida. Around age10, Isaac made a home movie called The Avenger, in which he played dual characters; he also participated in school plays. He wrote his first play in fifth grade; it was based on the Biblical story of Noah's Ark and featured a doubtful platypus. He found great joy at performing in front of people, which proved to be a stress relief at a time when his parents were separating and his mother became sick. Growing up in a religious household, Isaac was a rebellious child and liked causing trouble at school. "I set off a fire extinguisher in the gym, defaced a mural, just stupid stuff", he recalled in a 2015 interview. At one point, his teacher screened off his desk from the rest of the class with a piece of cardboard. Isaac was eventually expelled. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed his family's home in Miami. Around this time, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Palm Beach where he attended a public high school. Isaac liked his new school and formed a band with boys he met in a trailer park. Isaac spent his musical years living a "straight edge" lifestyle. To avoid getting typecast as a "Latino gangster", he used Isaac as his surname at auditions. In his own words, "Being called Oscar Hernández in Miami is like being called John Smith; there are 15 pages of us in the phone book." To support himself financially, he worked as an orderly at the hospital where his father worked. During a trip to New York City to play a young Fidel Castro in an Off Broadway production of the play When it's Cocktail Time in Cuba, he successfully auditioned to study at the Juilliard School.

In 2015, Isaac portrayed Nathan Hamlet Bateman, the reclusive inventor of a humanoid artificial intelligence, in the science fiction film Ex Machina. He based his character's look and accent on director Stanley Kubrick and observed his speech patterns. Isaac modeled Bateman's personality on chess champion Bobby Fischer and played the game during filming to get "in that mode of constantly trying to be a few steps ahead". with praise for Isaac's performance. Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert. com commended Isaac for possessing "an electrifying star quality, cruelly sneering yet somehow delightful, insinuating and intellectually credible". Isaac followed with his first leading role on television—the 6 episode HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, in which he played politician Nick Wasicsko. Isaac was approached for the role shortly after he had finished filming for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Although he found the story "fascinating", he was initially reluctant to sign on as it was "a little impenetrable" for him. He agreed after finding footage of Wasicsko interacting with the media. Isaac's performance, which won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, was lauded by critics. Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker praised it as "a star performance agile enough to elevate scenes that might veer into agitprop". Isaac co starred as Poe Dameron, an X wing pilot, in the epic space opera film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Having liked Star Wars films since childhood, he initially considered himself unfit for the part, but director J. J. Abrams convinced him in a meeting. A fan of Inside Llewyn Davis, Abrams described Isaac as "a far more sophisticated actor than one might get for a role". Isaac suggested to Abrams that his character be from the moon Yavin 4, which first appeared in Star Wars (1977) in scenes filmed in his country Guatemala; this idea was incorporated. While filming The Force Awakens, Isaac initially felt insecure, but soon found a sense of belonging with co stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, who were also newcomers to the film series. In preparation for the role, Isaac read about war, including a book called What It's Like to Go to War. The Force Awakens received positive reviews and grossed $2billion worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film of 2015. Forbes and TheWrap critics praised the cast additions, including Isaac, as "outright terrific", and "engaging performers" who "make strong impressions very quickly, and who are charismatic enough to make us care about their characters". Isaac agreed to play the titular villain in the film X Men: Apocalypse (2016) because he was a fan of X Men comic books since childhood. Critics Angelica Jade Bastién and Glenn Kenny believed Isaac, though a "charismatic and dynamic" actor, "feel[s] so torpid here", and "fares poorly through no fault of his own". Years after Apocalypse underwhelming critical performance, Isaac commented that he wished the film and his character had been better handled. Also in 2016, he starred alongside Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale in The Promise, a historical drama about a love triangle set during the Armenian genocide. Critics were dismissive of the film, believing that the trio's talents were wasted. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times wrote that the film was "derivative of better war romances" but was "bolstered by strong performances from Isaac and Bale, two of the best actors of their generation". The film's producers intended to donate the profits to charity, but it accrued a $102million loss. Outside film in 2016, Isaac narrated the Nike ad Unlimited You, and voiced a soldier trying to rejoin civilian life in the podcast series Homecoming. About late 2016, Isaac spent most of his time caring for his dying mother. As her condition worsened, he began reading her Hamlet by Shakespeare, whose work he had been a fan of since childhood. In honor of his mother, who died later in February 2017, Isaac starred as Prince Hamlet in The Public Theater production of Hamlet. The play, directed by Sam Gold, ran from July to September 2017. The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney praised Isaac as the production's prime asset, and Jeremy Gerard of Deadline Hollywood described him as "the rare actor as comfortable onstage as before the camera", highlighting his "committed, fully conceived performance". Also that year, Isaac played an insurance investigator in the black comedy Suburbicon, written by the Coen brothers who directed Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called Isaac's performance the film's best, and David Sims of The Atlantic wrote, "The film's only really electrifying moments are generated by Oscar Isaac[ ] it's in his scenes that the darkly funny spark of the Coens' writing flickers to life." For the film, Isaac was nominated for a San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor. Isaac's final work in 2017 was in the sequel Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in which he reprised the role of Poe Dameron. J. J. Abrams originally intended to kill Dameron off in The Force Awakens, but Isaac convinced him otherwise. The Last Jedi grossed $1.3billion becoming 2017's highest grossing film.

Isaac filmed Annihilation (2018) simultaneously with Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the same studio. As such, he did not have enough time rehearsing for his role in the former and credited co star Natalie Portman (who played his wife) with helping him film their intimate scenes with ease. The film received positive reviews. Tasha Robinson of The Verge complimented Isaac's chemistry with Portman, and Caryn James of the BBC took note of his ability to act well with a mere glance. Isaac debuted as a producer filming the historical drama Operation Finale (2018), in which he played Peter Malkin, the Israeli secret agent who captured Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann in 1960. When asked about his first time producing, he said he wanted to contribute to the stories he is part of. He believed that the film's topic still remains relevant in modern times, where extreme views are deemed acceptable. Critical consensus for Operation Finale was that it is "well intentioned, well acted, and overall entertaining, even if the depth and complexity of the real life events depicted can get a little lost in their dramatization". Bhaskar Chattopadhyay of Firstpost thought Isaac was brilliant in certain scenes, but mainly highlighted the performances of the supporting actors. The film was a commercial failure. Isaac's other films in 2018 include At Eternity's Gate (where he played Paul Gauguin), Life Itself and Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse, which featured his voice during the post credits. Isaac co starred with Olivia Wilde in the box office failure Life Itself; Caroline Siede of Consequence found the two leads unconvincing and their roles to be poorly written. After Isaac finished filming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in October 2018, he intended to take a prolonged acting hiatus but was cast as Duke Leto Atreides in Dune (2021) a few months later. It received mixed reviews but was profitable. Earlier in 2019, Isaac starred as an agent working against a drug cartel in South America in J. C. Chandor's Netflix film Triple Frontier. To avoid feeling exhausted during scenes in which he is running at high altitude, Isaac trained in a New York hall where one can decrease oxygen. He said that filming in a favela with no water or sewage made him realize his privileged life. Reviews for the film were generally positive. Critics Christy Lemire and Richard Roeper highlighted Isaac's screen presence as "charismatic" and "electric". Isaac next voiced the role of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family (2019), a computer animated film based on the titular characters created by Charles Addams. For years, fans suggested Isaac be cast in the part as they claimed he resembled Raul Julia who played Gomez Addams in live action films in the 1990s. The Addams Family received mixed reviews and grossed $203million on a $24million budget. Isaac's only role in 2020 was of a kindhearted prison officer in the short film The Letter Room, for which he was also an executive producer. Roktim Rajpal of the Deccan Herald believed that Isaac "is the backbone of the short and makes an impact with his sincere performance", yet he fails to "internali[z]e the character as much as expected". The following year, he starred alongside Jessica Chastain in Scenes from a Marriage. A remake of the 1973 Swedish series of the same name by Ingmar Bergman, it switches gender roles, and explores the themes of monogamy, marriage and divorce. To film the show, Isaac and Chastain employed their experiences from past relationships and parents' marriage. Isaac performed in a full frontal nude scene in the series. Reviews for the show were positive, particularly for the duo's chemistry. Carol Midgley of The Times praised them for giving "masterclass performances and delivering crackling, wounding dialogue faultlessly". He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a miniseries. To avoid what he saw as "green screen alien space land", Isaac starred as William Tell—a troubled, gambling military veteran—in the Paul Schrader directed crime drama The Card Counter. Because his character writes in his journal every night, Isaac took a penmanship course. To portray Tell's military experience, he drew inspiration from his time as a high school graduate when he and his friend wanted to join the marines. Near the end, the film's production was halted due to the COVID 19 lockdown; per Isaac's suggestion, he finished it with only Schrader and the cinematographer on set. Justin Chang of NPR lauded Isaac for "bring[ing] his usual sly, soulful magnetism to the role" and embodying his character's trauma in his "dark, haunted gaze". The film earned him a nomination for the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actor of the Year. After reprising the role of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family 2, Isaac starred in Dune as the father of the protagonist Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet). Based on the 1965 namesake novel by Frank Herbert, Dune premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival to mixed reviews but was nominated for 10Academy Awards. It earned over $400million against a budget of $165million. Isaac began 2022 with the black comedy Big Gold Brick in a brief role that Nick Schager of Variety found "out of left field". In the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Moon Knight (2022), he played the titular superhero, a man with dissociative identity disorder (DID) who serves as an avatar to the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. He also executive produced the show, which is based on Marvel Comics' namesake comic book. Initially reluctant to join another franchise, he had several conversations with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige before signing on. He read Robert B. Oxnam's book A Fractured Mind to research DID. To distinguish the three alters, Isaac gave them different nationalities. For example, he suggested that the alter Steven Grant be English, and was inspired by comedians Karl Pilkington (from the British travel comedy series An Idiot Abroad) and Peter Sellers to develop his English accent. The third alter, Jake Lockley, speaks Spanish as Isaac wanted to add an aspect of his own life to the role. Moon Knight was released to a positive critical reception. In a review of the fifth episode, Matt Fowler of IGN took note of Isaac's "dynamic and dazzling performance" and "ace acting", highlighting the dramatic scene in which his character revisits his traumatic past. He was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Hero. In 2023, Isaac starred as the title character in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window opposite Rachel Brosnahan. The production had its initial run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before its Broadway transfer which began in April 2023. Later that year, he voiced the role of Spider Man 2099, a version of the namesake superhero, in the computer animated film Spider Man: Across the Spider Verse. The film received critical acclaim and was a commercial success. Critic Maya Phillips of The New York Times found Isaac to be well cast as a slightly unhinged and self serious Spider Man. Isaac will next star in Julian Schnabel's drama In the Hand of Dante, based on the novel of the same name by Nick Tosches. He will also reprise his voice role in the sequel Spider Man: Beyond the Spider Verse and will portray Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro's horror film Frankenstein.

Media publications like Vanity Fair, The Guardian and People have positively commented on Isaac's looks. Rolling Stone and other media outlets have dubbed Isaac "the Internet's Boyfriend", a label he is skeptical about. Hoby Hermione of The Guardian took note of Isaac's "cheerful, vigorous presence", "energy and good humour". In 2017, Isaac was described as the "best dang actor of his generation" by Vanity Fair chief critic Richard Lawson, who wrote, "He's a classically trained actor of true range, one who can sing and dance, do comedy, action, and drama with equal ease and authority. He's thrilling to watch, a prodigious mind sparking a nimble[ ] form into action." The same year, Esquire Miranda Collinge added that after his roles of Hamlet and Poe Dameron, Isaac was becoming the most accomplished leading actor of his generation. Hossein Amini, who directed Isaac in The Two Faces of January, remarked on his "ability to make the tiniest shifts in character incredibly quickly, without revealing any element of process". Martin identified an extent of "loneliness and menace" in Isaac's most memorable characters, attributing his growing success to "a series of brilliant but darkly idiosyncratic roles" (Inside Llewyn Davis and A Most Violent Year). Isaac himself noted "a sense of melancholy, anger, displacement" in these characters. He often looks for "the comic in the dramatic and the dramatic in the comic and where those things meet and the brackish waters in between". For Isaac, acting is "the only framework where you can give expression to such intense emotions. Otherwise anywhere else is pretty inappropriate, unless you're just in a room screaming to yourself." he has played a wide range of nationalities, including Egyptian, Indonesian, Armenian, Greek, Welsh, East Timorese, and English. Rick Warner opined Isaac has "skillfully embodied several different affective dispositions—sensitive, flippant, romantically charming, hyperintelligent, neurotic, cynical, sinister, and menacingly violent". His performance in A Most Violent Year has been credited for a positive ethnic representation in American cinema, with author Charles Ramírez Berg writing in Close up: Great Cinematic Performances that Isaac's character—a self acting businessman replacing the usual "barbarous, short fused ethnic gangster"—broke "the tempestuous, hot blooded Latino stereotype". In 2017, Isaac became "debatably" the first Latino actor to play Hamlet in a major US production. According to David Román of Theatre Journal, it helped subvert the stereotype that Latinos cannot be proficient in English. Isaac believes that "the artist[ ] should be borderless".

Isaac is indifferent to his celebrity status and remains close with his family. Isaac is married to Danish film director Elvira Lind, whom he met in 2012, and married in 2017. They have two sons: Eugene (b. 2017) and Mads (b. 2019). He lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.