Oscar Isaac Interview, The Nativity Story

At the Los Angeles Press Day for "The Nativity Story," Movies Online caught up with recent Juilliard graduate, Oscar Isaac, who according to Nativity director Catherine Hardwicke ‘was so soulful and alive’ that he was immediately cast in the critical role of Joseph.

"The Nativity Story," directed by Hardwicke from a screenplay written by Mike Rich, is a dramatic and compelling film which chronicles the perilous journey of two people, Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and Joseph (Isaac), a miraculous pregnancy, and the history–defining birth of Jesus. The international cast also include Hiam Abbass ("Munich," "Paradise Now"), Shaun Toub ("Crash"), Alexander Siddig ("Syriana"), Nadim Sawalha ("Syriana"), Eriq Ebouaney, Stefan Kalipha, Said Amadis, Stanley Townsend and Ciaran Hinds ("Munich").

"I was really struck by how human the character seemed – it really jumped out at me," says Isaac. "I was intrigued by the script’s focus on what their life together must have been like. Joseph is a man who is truly in love with Mary. But for him, the key question is ‘how do you deal with all of these things happening to you at once and not walk away?’"

Isaac began his film acting career by putting himself on tape for the role of a Russian gangster/hustler for "PU-239." Isaac’s tape impressed writer/director Scott Burns to cast him opposite Paddy Considine and Radha Mitchell, and after seeing Isaac’s performance, producer Steven Soderbergh cast him in his own feature "Guerilla" opposite Benecio del Toro. Isaac’s other film credits include "Blood in the Sand" and "All About The Benjamins." He was also a guest star on the television series "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" and starred in the musical revival of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" adapted by John Guare and Mel Shapiro for the NY Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park program. Isaac followed "PU-239" by starring in "Beauty of the Father" by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz and director Michael Grief at Manhattan Theatre Club.

While at Juilliard, Isaac attended Master Classes with such renowned actors as Sir Ian McKellen, Fionna Shaw, Simon Russell Beale, Brenda Blethyn, and Alfred Molina, and he was the recipient of the prestigious Princess Grace Award in 2004. He also writes and performs music with his band. Isaac was raised in Miami and currently resides in New York.

Oscar Isaac is a talented newcomer with a good sense of humor and lots of enthusiasm. We really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about playing Joseph in "The Nativity Story," working with Catherine Hardwicke, and attending the Nazareth Boot Camp

Q: WHAT DO YOU DO TO AUDITION FOR JOSEPH?

OI: Well, you know, you just try to approach him like any other character. How is he a real person? How is he like me? How is he not like me?

Q: WHEN YOU READ THE SCRIPT, DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING NEW ABOUT HIM?

OI: Absolutely. Everything. I didn't know anything really about him. He was always kind of behind some sheep in the back, trying to get his face in the picture. He was always way in the back, so you know, you never really know what his role was. Or really how integral his role was. And how it almost wouldn't have happened had he made a couple of different choices. So it really kind of brought him to the forefront for me playing him.

Q: DID YOU READ THE BIBLE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG?

OI: Yeah, I grew up in a Christian household. I knew the story and the angel comes and they go to Bethlehem and there's no room at the inn, there's a sign that says "inn" (laughs) in my head.

Q: SO WHAT DID YOU THINK OF MIKE RICH'S SCREEN TREATMENT OF HIM?

OI: That's the thing. At first — they're making this movie about the nativity story and I was like: is there really anything to say about the Nativity? Don't we all know the story? And then I read the script and it was so obvious to me suddenly after reading it of course, that there was so much dramatic value in the story. These are people going through life and death situations, and really interesting character studies. For instance, what is it like for a man that loves God and is completely in love with this woman to have to share the woman he loves with God? It's a strange idea, a strange concept, so how do you wrap your mind around those things?

Q: DID IT CHANGE YOU IN ANY WAY HAVING PLAYED HIM? DO YOU FEEL A BIT MORE SPIRITUAL NOW?

OI: Absolutely. Those are big sandals to fill. Of course as an actor, when you dive into something, how do I figure out how to be this devout Jewish man in the first century? You know, for Jews at that time, there was no separation between God and them as individuals. And also the connection with the land. So of course trying to figure out what it meant to have that kind of piety, that deep relationship with God, affected me. I think about that. I think about how I can be more humble.

Q: WHAT ABOUT WORKING WITH KEISHA?

OI: Yeah, she was fantastic. She's such a deep — especially in the scenes, she has this kind of gravity, this profundity of spirit. She's very still. But then in between takes she's really funny. She would crack jokes and would keep everything very light and was such a good sport about having to ride a donkey for nine hours a day. Thankfully she had such a great sense of humor, for I can get very caught up in the moment and he’s dealing with so many issues. She kind of kept it light.

Q: SHE SEEMS VERY MATURE FOR HER AGE. WHEN YOU DID THIS, HOW OLD WAS SHE?

OI: Sixteen. It's happened so quickly. We just finished shooting in July.

Q: HOW WERE MOROCCO AND ITALY?

OI: Italy was a lot hotter than Morocco, actually, which was very strange. At least it felt hotter. It was amazing. I’d walking down the street in that little town of Matera (Italy) and it was just gorgeous to be there. I'd never gone out of the country before this. So the whole thing was new for me. And then Morocco was really — even just flying over those Atlas Mountains, and suddenly the whole thing felt more spiritual to me as well. And the culture there — they're very in touch with God, as well. And to stand out there in the wilderness in Morocco, you know, and there's that moment in the movie when I'm asking God for a sign, and we're out in the middle of nowhere and we're down to our last piece of bread, and behind me the sun was setting, and literally right in front of me — I wish there had been a camera there to capture what I was seeing — the full moon starts to come up over those mountains, the Atlas Mountains . . . in the film, Joseph asks for a sign and one doesn't come. But for Oscar it was — this is a sign that you are doing the right thing, that you're on your way. Because it was such a humbling moment too but I was just in awe — like (whispers) what am I doing here? This is amazing.

Q: HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH GILDA?

OI: (laughs) Gilda the diva. The diva donkey. She was actually great, so much so that I really kind of championed for her to be flown to Morocco, because we just got along with her so well. But then when she got to Morocco, she wasn't crazy about the hot sand. Yeah, I think she caught on that people liked her so she kind of said — I've got some power here. I'm not walking on this sand until you cool it down.

Q: WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH CATHERINE HARDWICKE?

OI: It was such an interesting choice. I remember when I found out, I was like — Catherine's doing the film, huh? And then suddenly I realized what a brilliant choice it was, because what she's done — she's done films that deal with adolescent people going through incredibly difficult times, and this was the most famous of adolescent people going through incredibly difficult times, so it was great and she has such a — you know the film has kind of a poetic quality to it. Yet she's incredibly energetic, really energetic, frenetically so, and what that allowed was to — it helps to infuse the scenes so that they weren't passive. People were emotionally active, and driven, and wanting things and desiring things. And she had a great way of communicating with Keisha because she just knows how to speak to adolescent people.

Q: WE KEEP HEARING ABOUT THE NAZARETH BOOT CAMP? WHAT DID YOU GET OUT OF THAT? HOW DID IT AFFECT YOUR PERFORMANCE?

OI: I don't think I could have done it without that because for me, for instance the hands, I knew that I wouldn't be able to feel — if I didn't believe myself, there was no way anybody else was going to believe it, so — I have actor hands . . . how do you get first century carpenter hands? So I remember the technical adviser came and I shook his hand — those are the hands that I need. He had these huge, massive, swollen, cut-up hands. So we worked with First Century tools exclusively for a month. I was making the staff that I used in the film — the walls of my house, we did masonry work, and by the time filming came those hands were callused and bruised, swollen . . . okay, now I'm ready for the lines. Now I'm ready for dialogue. Yeah, it was great. You felt like you were living in that time. I'd look around and I'd see Keisha and Shohreh milking goats, and I'm carving wood here — you can't help but feel like you're in it.

Q: DID THE BOOT CAMP ALSO INCLUDE DOING IMPROVS WITH THE OTHER ACTORS?

OI: Yeah, improvisations on the scenes of the film. Yeah, definitely. And it also entailed a lot of religious scholars coming in, particularly Jewish advisers coming in and telling us about the culture and what it was like. Little things you wouldn't think of — like they have the scroll on the door and what that meant. What did it mean to look at the synagogue?

Q: ARE THESE [PRESS] NOTES CORRECT THAT YOU ONLY GRADUATED FROM JUILLIARD A YEAR AGO?

OI: Correct notes.

Q: HAVE YOU STOPPED WORKING?

OI: No, it's been an amazing first year out, yeah.

Q: JUILLIARD SEEMS TO HAVE A GOOD TRACK RECORD BECAUSE THE GIRL FROM THE NINE, JESSICA COLLINS, JUST STARTED WORKING RIGHT OUT OF JUILLIARD.

OI: She was in my class.

Q: YOU WERE IN THE SAME CLASS?

OI: She played Lady Macbeth, I played Macbeth. That was our last big show. . .

Q: SO IT’S NOT ONLY JULLIARD, IT’S YOUR CLASS. YOU GUYS ARE ON A ROLL. WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING IN THAT CLASS?

OI: We're doing good. You know, even while we were there, the teachers and people would say — you've got a very special class. We're group 34 because they go by groups, and yeah — there was always this really great dynamic and the class was full of great artists, and I imagine you're going to be seeing a lot more of Group 34 out there.

Q: WERE THESE MASTER CLASSES WITH PEOPLE LIKE MCCLELLEN AND SIMON RUSSELL BEALE TAKING PLACE WHILE YOU WERE AT JULLIARD?

OI: Yeah, during school, they'd come in and they'd work with us. One of the greatest was when Alfred Molina came. I got to work with him on Julius Caesar which was a lot of fun.

Q: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NEXT?

OI: I have a film coming out next year called The Half Life of Timofey Berezin which premiered in Toronto. It's a great film by Scott Burns who wrote and directed it, and it's produced by Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and it's a really powerful film about — well it takes place at the fall of the Soviet Union with these two people dealing with this new crazy beast of capitalism.

Q: DID YOU DO THAT RIGHT AFTER OR BEFORE THE NATIVITY STORY?

OI: Actually before. That's how quick The Nativity's been. I shot that before and this film's already coming out . . . yeah, I was on the move.

Q: ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING MODERN DAY?

OI: Yeah, I’m not going to be in sandals all the time [laughs]. I’m going to definitely try to do some stuff that is modern day. . . but still that has something to say, that means something. People really trying to cope with issues or problems, I think, is important.

Q: DO YOU THINK THE NATIVITY WILL GET BEYOND A SUNDAY SCHOOL AUDIENCE?

OI: I think so. I think it will. One — because it is this big epic adventure journey with this tiny little intimate love story. It's kind of the story of how these two people that are forced together — I guess by one more than the other — how they ultimately become a family. I think that in itself is a fantastic story. Also the fact that it's about humility and it's about love, and that's a great message, particularly even for religious people, that this is the greatest act of humility of all time, that God decides to come to earth to the most ostracized and oppressed of people — particularly two people who are ostracized by their own community in the little hick town of Bethlehem — in a cave, I think that's what the message is. It's not the powerful and the rich and the proud that are exalted, it’s the humble and those that act out of love that God exalts.

Q: DID YOU TAKE AWAY ANY OF THOSE CARPENTRY SKILLS INTO YOUR REAL LIFE?

OI: I really got into woodwork. It was really relaxing. It was — yeah, just to kind of keep carving away and taking away — there's something about that that’s very Zen.

Q: SO IF SOMEBODY NEEDS A CHAIR, YOU CAN JUST GO CHOP DOWN A TREE?

OI: Absolutely. I carry that staff around on the subway all the time. You need it out there. [laughs]

Q: DO YOU ACTUALLY DESIRE TO GO TO BETHLEHEM NOW?

OI: I do. I do. Samir was the name of the technical adviser that I worked with, and he actually runs his own First Century Village in Nazareth, and him and the two other people, Mira and Rani, I really connected with them so much. They would come over to where I was staying and we would make Middle Eastern Food, and they invited me to come out there and I definitely want to go out there.

Q: SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN, HE RUNS HIS OWN FIRST CENTURY VILLAGE?

OI: They have a First Century Village where they basically dress up and they have sheep and he makes it all himself out of his hands just archeologically the way it was back then. It was great.

Q: IS THEATER STILL GOING TO BE PART OF YOUR HORIZON?

OI: Definitely. It's very important for me to get back to theater a lot because that’s originally what I love. I’d be very excited to go to London and do some theater. I think it just feeds me so much.

Q: IS TWO GENTS THE ONLY MUSICAL YOU'VE EVER DONE?

OI: Yeah, it was. Well, in high school I did Little Shop of Horrors. [laughs]

Q: HOW DO YOU THINK GALT McDERMOTT'S SCORE FOR THAT HOLDS UP?

OI: I think it does. I think it's such a fun sound. I think it needs to be attacked in an interesting way, but I really loved the music — I really was into the music.

Q: IT'S BEEN SO TRANSCENDED BY HAIR THAT PEOPLE FORGET HE WROTE IT.

OI: They even forgot that it actually won the Tony. I think the music's so good, especially the stuff that happens in the second half of the play where the music just goes wild.

Q: WERE YOU ONE OF THE TWO GENTS?

OI: I was Proteus.

Q: ARE YOU BASED IN NEW YORK?

OI: Yeah. I plan on staying there as long as I can. I’m a New Yorker.

Q: DID YOU EVER DO PAGEANTS WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

OI: I did. Actually the very first thing I ever did was at a church. It was at a nativity play. I was a little shepherd with me and my cousin and my sister. I didn't know what I was doing there. My mom made my costume and I was a little shepherd boy. We got bumped up on the cast list. [laughs]

Q: DID YOU SEE WHALE RIDER BEFORE YOU MET KEISHA?

OI: Yeah, I did. That was an unbelievable performance. Unbelievable. It's funny. You watch that, and that's what you hope to be able to achieve one day — and she's 14. 12 when she made it — I don't even know. That made me so excited to be able to share the screen with her.

Q: WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING DIRECTED BY A FEMALE DIRECTOR? IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE?

OI: Yeah. I think so. I think it's harder for them. Particularly, I think a lot of times if a man — they can say ‘Oh, he's a genius,’ but with a woman, I think she has a little more to overcome, and I thought she did such a fantastic job wrangling this beast and she knows how to get to the emotional core. But I think above being a woman, I think she's just an amazing artist and she just knows how to somehow — I'm sure that being a woman influences her but being able to talk to an actor, she knows how to do it.

Q: AND IN THIS FILM SHE'S WORKING WITH DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES WHERE APPARENTLY YOU HAD TO SAY THE SAME THING IN SEVEN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

OI: Yeah, there was a lot of miscommunication at times with the crew — the Moroccan crew and the Italian crew — but she was able to get it done. I’m really proud of her.

Q: DID YOU LEARN ANY PARTICULAR PHRASES THAT CAME IN USEFUL FOR COMMUNICATING WITH OTHER PEOPLE? YOU LIKE WORKING WITH DIALECT?

OI: Karas! That means ‘Stop!’ That’s the only Arabic word I remember. [laughs]

Q: I think you did a great job with the dialect. Is that something you like working with?

OI: I love it. Juilliard really helps you. They give you the technical skills to be able to manipulate the muscles in your mouth to be able to make different sounds. That's a lot of fun. It also helps you feel that you're becoming something else, something other. . . .In the other film I'm Russian with a thick Russian accent. I loved doing that.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND?

OI: I was born in Guatemala and then I moved to the States when I was four months old. I lived in Baltimore and Louisiana and basically grew up in Miami.

Q: ARE YOU LOOKING AT TELEVISION AT ALL?

OI: Not so much. I'm open to it. There's a lot of great stuff out there but I really love theater and I love film a lot. I like the dynamic.

Q: ARE YOU GOING TO THE VATICAN?

OI: Yes. It blows my mind that that's even happening. It's hard to wrap my mind around. I'm going to be sitting with 7,000 people with my big mug up on screen. It's hard to even imagine. I'm taking my dad with me.

Q: YOU SAID YOU GREW UP CHRISTIAN. DID YOU GROW UP CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN?

OI: No, I would say Protestant but it was more non-denominational. We went to a few different churches.

Q: THANK YOU.

OI: Thank you. It was great to meet you.

"The Nativity Story" opens in theaters on December 1st. "The Nativity Story" chronicles the arduous journey of two people, Mary and Joseph, a miraculous pregnancy, and the history-defining birth of Jesus. This dramatic and compelling story comes to life in a major motion picture starring Keisha Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") as Mary, Oscar Isaac ("Guerrilla") as Joseph, and Academy Award® nominee Shoreh Aghdashloo ("House of Sand and Fog") as Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. "The Nativity Story" is directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen", "Lords of Dogtown") from a screenplay by Mike Rich ("The Rookie", "Finding Forrester").