Broadway veteran Oscar Isaac may not be a household name at the moment, but all that is about to change. The release of "The Nativity Story," in which Isaac portrays Joseph with heart and dignity, will most definitely instigate this gifted actor's jump to the forefront of the film industry. The Daily sat down with Isaac to discuss "The Nativity Story," his shift from theater to film, as well as his next project.
Tufts Daily: What kind of research or preparation did you do, if any, to play someone of such vast importance?
Oscar Isaac: It was incredibly important to not make him just a walking icon. A lot of biblical films that I had seen, they're just more representational, representations of what these characters are, as opposed to really kind of getting underneath their skin and figuring out how they work, psychologically - what's going on in their head. So it was important to figure out how to make him a real person, and how to make him what it was like, as a young Jewish man, in first century Palestine.
And so we had a month-long Bible boot camp, where we went to the place where we shot, in Italy, the Nazareth village, with technical advisors. I learned how to use first century tools, built the walls of my house, I made my staff. The women did the women work, which was milking goats, making cheese and spinning wool. We really learned what it was like to live at that time. There was no separation between work and them as individuals. And also, [we also learned] culturally, what it was like, what Judaism was like, in the first century.
TD: Did you feel pressure playing Joseph, such a huge role in so many people's lives?
OI: Maybe dangerously so, no. The truth is, Mike Rich wrote such a reverential script. He took directly from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. For me, [as] I approached it, I felt the way that I would give it the most respect is by approaching it like any other character, like any character from Shakespeare, any character from Chekhov.
You figure out who this person is, you understand how they think, what they're like, how do they relate to me, how are they a relatable person, how are they a full three-dimensional character.
TD: You play opposite Keisha Castle-Hughes, who is still very young and very inexperienced. What was that like?
OI: I mean, it's amazing. Have you seen "Whale Rider" (2002)? I was watching it, and I was like, "I don't think she realizes she's in a movie. I don't think she realizes she's acting in a movie." I was right. She has this way of making the cameras and everything around her melt away, and, as an actor, that's what you dream you can get to.
TD: You have a lot of experience in theater. Do you find films more challenging or less challenging?
OI: I think I do find film more challenging. With theater, you're expressing out, you're going out. Your energy is going out towards the person all the way in the back of the house, all of the way to the top of the balcony. You still have to make it very real and planted, but your energy is going out.
With film, it's the same thing, but the opposite. You're asking them to come in to you and the trick is to still want everything just as much, and to still have those incredible emotions and have all that stuff going on inside you, but to make it internal. It's like water skiing and snow skiing. It's a similar thing, but it's a different technique, it's a different language.
TD: Your next film is "Guerrilla," which is a Che Guevara biography. What was it like working with Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro?
OI: It was exhilarating. It's crazy; I don't think I'd ever heard "action," the word "action." All of a sudden, Benicio would start moving and I would just follow Benicio, follow Benicio. There would be cameras everywhere and sometimes we'd run into them. I mean, it was chaotic, but it was amazing because it was so natural. We didn't feel like we were acting for the camera. We were just kind of living and I learned a lot ... from Benicio and Steven.
TD: For "The Nativity Story," because of the time frame and the content, there's a lot of comparisons between "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) and "The Nativity Story." How do you feel about that?
OI: They're both religiously themed, but they're completely different. Structurally, they're different because one's more of a straight narrative. The other one has some more experimental qualities to it. Content-wise, "The Nativity Story" is this epic adventure and journey, with this tiny little intimate love story between these two people that are forced together, one more than the other. By the end of it, they become a family. It happens to be the most famous family in history, but it really is just this love story ... It's quiet; the film is kind of quiet. So I think it's very different ... They both try to be accurate historically.
