Top 111 Quotes & Sayings by Oscar Isaac
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Guatemalan actor Oscar Isaac.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I've never been much of a guitarist. I mean, I've played forever, but I was always more of a rhythm kind of guy. I don't read music.
I grew up in a very devoutly Christian home.
Humans are mutants, everything's a mutant - things that evolve.
I started off thinking that I just needed one shot to prove myself, but then I realised that I was only going to learn about acting by doing it.
'Cool' is detached and emotionally cool. My instinct is to battle anything that seems overly cool.
You can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.
I had an audition where Josh Brolin was pelting me with his personality. I didn't get the part.
Our morality is based on so many factors: of where we were born, who we were born to, what values were instilled in us, what values we chose, the way that our lives have shaped us. That dictates so much of what we assume is our morality, and also the culture, all of these things.
What's funny in 'The Mayor of MacDougal Street' is how Dave Van Ronk talks a lot about the time and how exciting it was and how electric it was.
Max Minghella is a very close friend of mine, and I talk to him regularly.
I've done movies I'm very proud of, but there's always a sense of: 'Come see this shiny new car!' The question I hate the most is: 'Why should people see it?'
A lot of very successful businessmen share some of these sociopathic traits - a lack of empathy, seeing people as commodities, projecting an air of sincerity when everything is actually calculated.
I had a great conversation with Tom Waits, of all people.
I think romantic passion is wanting a little something in return.
It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.
'Mojave' is a very wild, throwback film with these two dudes going after each other.
There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck.
All of my high school issues are resolved!
I like the idea of the comedy of resilience.
That first play I did in New York, Rogelio Martinez's 'When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba,' I played a young Fidel Castro.
My dad was a doctor, but he was just always, like, going from hospital to hospital for some reason.
I was always - maybe stupidly so - very confident.
I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.
The self-made man that some people believe is a myth? It could be, because you do it on the backs of other people.
I don't know why people are so obsessed with finding out stuff before the movie comes out. It's so much more fun to just go. I mean, I don't do that. I don't go looking for stuff that I'm interested in, you know, to try and find out pictures and what the movie's about. It's so much more fun to be surprised.
I like being like a chameleon who transforms himself with each role.
I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.
With Shakespeare, there's no subtext; you're speaking exactly what you're thinking constantly.
I guess 'Scarface' was the Cuban Al Pacino.
Most actors, if you ask them if they play guitar, they'll say they played guitar for 20 years, but what they really mean is they've owned a guitar for 20 years.
I'm so bored by business and money.
I think that when you decide to dedicate yourself to creative endeavors and surround yourself with people who are creative, you very quickly learn how hard it is to survive doing those kinds of things, not to mention make a living at them.
When I moved to New York, I had to let my band know that I couldn't play anymore, and that was difficult to leave that behind.
My dad always played a lot of music, so I heard him playing all the time, and then I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar, so I got an acoustic and started taking lessons. I wanted to be able to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen.
I don't know if they were all functioning, but I did play in a bunch of bands.
Jessica Lange was my biggest crush when I was a kid.
A movie set is like a petri dish for neuroses, you know? It's just, like, egos and weird personalities and, more than anything, fear.
I think that's why often people in creative fields can feel so alone is because there's a constant third eye, that constant watcher.
You watch 'Whale Rider,' and I defy you to not get teary-eyed at the end there.
When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.
I always joked with my parents. I told them, 'If I don't make it as an actor, my fallback is musician.'
I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.
I think for some reason we're conditioned in movies that the protagonist must be heroic or redeemable in some way, whereas in theater, that's not a necessary.
I come from a place where everything about me, even my body language, is saying: I mean you no harm. I smile, I laugh. Basic stuff for most people.
For me, with a character, you start with the shoes.
The first movie I can remember seeing in the theater was 'Return of the Jedi.' I can remember seeing Darth Vader's helmet come off. The shock of that moment.
My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff.
When I came up to New York to do a play, I passed by Julliard, and I was like, 'Oh I heard of this place.' I applied, and ended up getting in.
It'd be crazy to say just because an artist is not successful that means he's not talented. I don't think anybody really believes that, but sometimes it feels that way.
Cats are impossible to work with. They're just very difficult because you can't really train them. They're not really interested in whatever you want them to do. Dogs want to please you; cats only want to please themselves.
If you start trying to communicate ideas, I think you don't allow the audience to see themselves.
I was in bands, but they were punk bands, and you plug in the guitars, you turn them up really loud, you've got four or five other people on stage with you, you've got some protection from when they throw lighters. You can always hide behind the lead singer or the bass player.
I get attached to things: I wear the same jeans for a year.
I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college.
If you can find a way that your principles are actually the strategically smartest thing to do, you've kind of figured it out.
I think it's good to be a little more fearless in saying what you feel. In not being scared of the repercussions of that.
I was never much of a singer. I was terrible. It's embarrassing: I was trying to sound like everybody else. I went through a big Cure phase, so I was trying to do that kind of dramatic voice.
'Drive' is a genre piece, and a lot of times we don't get really sophisticated genre films.
There's very few people - like Shakespeare - who, no matter what, were gonna do what they did. For the rest of us, there's a lot of events that have to happen in order for things to end up the way they are.
How do you play 'righteous'? Do you just kind of stand up straighter? What does that mean as an actor? You don't really play a quality.
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