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Fresh Air

Actor Oscar Isaac

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.434.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The actor is Emmy nominated for his co-starring role in Scenes from a Marriage. We talk about his latest projects, grief and fatherhood, and his evangelical Christian upbringing. "We grew up with a very, very real sense of the impending doom of the apocalypse," he says.

Also, John Powers reviews Darren Star's new bingeable show starring Neil Patrick Harris, Uncoupled.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Fresh Air. I'm David Beancouli, Professor of Television Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, Infra Terry Gross.

0:08.0

Our guest today, Oscar Isaac, has been nominated for an Emmy this year for his performance in the HBO Limited Series Scenes From a Marriage, in which he starred opposite Jessica Chastain.

0:20.0

Here, in an early scene, as a married couple visiting a marriage counselor, are Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. The therapist has just asked them to briefly describe themselves.

0:31.0

Okay, I'm a man. I'm Jewish. What's weird? Right? That's so weird. That's strange. When I went blank, that's the first thing that came into my head.

0:42.0

Right. Yes, that's exactly the idea. Yes, right. Okay. I'm a father to Ava, who's four years old, as you know.

0:54.0

I'm an academic. I should have said that first, actually. It's a big part of my self-definition. I teach in the Philosophy Department at Tufts.

1:05.0

I'm a... 41, I'm a Democrat. I'm an Asmatic. Wow, you feel your asthma defines you? Yeah. Really?

1:18.0

Well, if you go through your whole life, threatened with the possibility of suffocating the camp, you know, becomes part of your self-definition.

1:25.0

Okay.

1:26.0

Oscar Isaac also stars in the Paul Schrader film The Card Counter, which is still available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. And he was one of the stars of the 2021 film, Dune, a new adaptation of the Frank Herbert science fiction novel.

1:42.0

Isaac had his breakthrough role in the Kohn Brothers independent film Inside Lewin Davis. But he's also been in blockbusters, like the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the Marvel Comics movie X-Man Apocalypse.

1:55.0

And most recently starred in the Disney Plus Marvel miniseries Moon Knight.

2:00.0

When Terry Gross spoke to Oscar Isaac last year, they started with a scene from The Card Counter.

2:06.0

It was written and directed by Paul Schrader and has many echoes of Taxi Driver, which Schrader also wrote.

2:13.0

Oscar Isaac's character, who goes by the name William Tell, is a man who holds everything inside, but some kind of explosion seems inevitable.

2:23.0

He's a card counter who goes from casino to casino, almost always winning, but keeping his bets modest so he can remain unnoticed.

2:33.0

In this opening voiceover scene, he's writing in his journal from prison. He says that as a young man, he was terrified of confined spaces.

2:42.0

So when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, he was surprised to find how well he adjusted. He goes on to explain why.

2:51.0

I like the routine. I like the regiment. Same activities, same time, every day. Same toothbrush, the same clothes, same toilet, same stale sweat, stale smoke, stale bodies, stale cooking, stale farts.

3:10.0

Same conversations. The face has changed, but not much. No choice. I found that I liked reading books. I've never read a book before.

3:19.0

Not all the way through. I found a life for myself that had been beyond my imagination. It was in prison. I learned account cards.

3:35.0

That's Oscar Isaac reading from the characters journal in the card counter. Oscar Isaac, welcome to Fresh Air. Such a pleasure to have you on our show.

...

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