Interview: Oscar Isaac Chats About ‘Dune’ and How He Selects a Role

Oscar Isaac is about as interesting an actor as there is in Hollywood. Whether it’s a smaller role like in 10 Years, Annihilation, and Drive, or bigger ones like in Ex Machina, Inside Llewyn Davis, A Most Violent Year, and Show Me a Hero, Isaac is nothing short of inherently compelling. He’s a true talent, capable of being in a Star Wars blockbuster just as easily as an independent feature. Isaac more or less can do it all, with his supporting turn in Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune just more evidence of such. As you might imagine, that made talking to him earlier in this week about the film an absolute pleasure.

Below, you can hear my chat with Isaac. We focus a lot on Dune, as you might imagine, but we also bring up his excellent turn this year in The Card Counter (which I dug, as you can see here). In particular, I was fascinated by how he chooses his roles. It’s not a long discussion, but I think it’s a good one. We even bring up our prior conversation, which leads to a decently humorous anecdote. Isaac is a great guy, as well as one of the reasons why Dune works so well, making this a really enjoyable time.

All this week, I’ve been sharing Dune interviews. As I mentioned with Rebecca Ferguson (here), Hans Zimmer (here), and with Joe Walker interview (here), I was quite taken by the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. Of course, Isaac’s work among the cast is no different. Here is a bit from my TIFF take:

Dune is a spectacle, through and through. Bold, serious, and dedicated to launching a whole new franchise, it’s a gamble that’s paid off. While it’s no masterpiece of re-invention of science fiction, it manages to show that the right amount of care can make something unwieldy like this work. So easily could this have crashed and burned, it not being a disaster already was a success. That it’s a very good film, through and through, is almost a miracle.

A star-studded cast takes this material as seriously as needed for this sort of sci-fi. Timothée Chalamet has the most substantial role, while Jason Momoa is clearly having the most fun. Along with Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac, they have the most to do. 

Here now is my interview with Dune star Oscar Issac. Enjoy:

Dune is out now in theaters and on HBO Max!