Oscar Isaac
Biography
Oscar Isaac was born Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada in Guatemala, to a Guatemalan mother, María Eugenia, and a Cuban father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernández-Cano, a pulmonologist. Oscar was raised in Miami, Florida. Before he became an actor, he played lead guitar and sang vocals in his band the Blinking Underdogs. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 2005.
Isaac's first major film role was Joseph in the film The Nativity Story (2006). He also had a small role in All About the Benjamins (2002) and the Ché Guevara biopic Guerrilla (2011). In addition to movie appearances, he made an appearance in the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). He also had a part in the movies The Life Before Her Eyes (2007); Body of Lies (2008), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe; Agora (2009), alongside Rachel Weisz; and the Australian film Balibo (2009), where he played José Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor, set amid the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975; Isaac won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role.
In 2013, Oscar starred in the Coen Brothers' folk music-themed comedy-drama, Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination. He subsequently starred in the crime drama A Most Violent Year (2014) and the science fiction thriller Ex Machina (2014), and appeared in the Star Wars films Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), as X-wing pilot Poe Dameron, and the ninth X-Men film, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), as the mutant supervillain Apocalypse. He has also headlined the HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero (2015), as politician Nick Wasicsko in 2015, which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film.
Elvira Lind (March 2017 - present) ( 1 child)
Trivia
He was born in Guatemala, to a Guatemalan mother, María Eugenia Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernández-Cano. Oscar's maternal grandfather was of French origin.
Studied acting at Juilliard.
Is friends with fellow Juilliard alumna, Academy Award-nominated actress Jessica Chastain.
Worked as an orderly at the same hospital as his doctor-father.
Is a musician and singer, playing guitar. In high school he played in punk bands and later became lead singer of his own band, the Blinking Underdogs.
Member of the 'Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) since 2016.
He was expelled from private grade school Westminster Christian due to various pranks and instances of misbehavior such as setting off a fire extinguisher in a gym and defacing a mural to make other kids laugh.
Isaac's family settled in the U.S. when he was five months old, and he was raised in Miami, Florida.
Lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in an apartment that he renovated himself.
Has been playing guitar since he was twelve.
Started acting in small local play in Miami at Area Stage Company. Till this day, he has a good relationship with owner and manager John Rodaz Sr. to the point that he was one of the first people whom he told that he got the part of Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Likewise, John often asks Oscar for his input in any plays that he is producing and thus tends to get a thank you credit in the playbill.
He was an avid fan and collector of X-Men comics growing up. He would later play the titular villain in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).
In a relationship with director Elvira Lind as of 2012.
In April 2017, he became a father for the first time, to a baby boy, at age 38. Child's mother is his partner Elvira Lind.
Personal Quotes
[on modeling his title character in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) persona] For the character I thought a lot about the comedy of resilience. Buster Keaton was someone that came to mind. He had quite an impassive face with a melancholic stare on it. All of these crazy things could be happening - he could be falling in love or a building could be falling on him, but it was all internalized.
[on working with the Coen brothers] It was the best experience of my life. They're so generous - not only with their time, but with stories about these people that they've worked with and artists they admire. It was an incredible, joyous process - even though it's quite heavy material. They're very pragmatic. They don't put any impositions on you or come in with any kind of idea in particular that they want you to do. There's room to play.
[on being cast as Llewyn Davis] It was the role of a lifetime, and I just really talked myself into the world of the movie, of 1960s Greenwich Village, New York - the pre-Dylan, great folk scene that was happening and into this character who's both wanting desperately to succeed, and also desperately to fail. And then, on top of of everything the character is, I was learning that repertoire of music, which I wasn't familiar with.. I'd say I definitely found the character through the music. I think that's the window into his soul, his only connection with the people outside.
[re immediate impact of being tapped for "Davis" film] On a practical level, as soon as Joel and Ethan [Coen] cast me, the doors opened up for more parts...Basically the next day [my agent said] we got these offers now. Now you're bona fide, kid.
[re 1960s Greenwich Village music scene]People hated each other. In Washington Square Park, it was amazing because there was all this music, but the drummers hated the bluegrass guys, who hated the folk guys who hated the jazz guys [fighting] over their square inches.
[singing in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)] Sometimes like 30 takes of one song. It was an intense process but I love the music, and I'd been playing them 100 times a day, so playing them 30 was fine. I get obsessed with that kind of stuff. Sometimes I would smoke a bunch of cigarettes and drink a bunch of beer before the take.
[on the impact of moving from small films to big-budget features] My job is still the same. Between 'action' and 'cut', that's mine. No matter how big the production is, that's still my space. That's a sacred place.
[on his research for The Promise (2016)] My approach was to immerse myself in the history of the time. For me, the biggest help was videos and recordings of survivors, who would recount what they witnessed. Little boys, as children, seeing their grandmother bayonetted by the gendarmes, or their mothers and sisters crucified - horrible atrocities! It was heartbreaking. I did feel some responsibility to try and tell their story. [2017]
[on The Promise (2016)] To my shame, I didn't know about the Armenian Genocide before I got the script. To read that 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hand of their own government, it was shocking. To this day, there's an active denial of it. That was the most interesting part of it, but the cast they put together, and the fact that all of the proceeds will go to charity. That's a great thing to be a part of. [2017]
