Actor Oscar Isaac was consumed with the role of Victor Frankenstein when director Lee Sung Jin asked him to star in the second season of the Netflix series Beef.
In Beef, Isaac plays Josh, the manager of an upscale Los Angeles country club. Josh is polished and charming — but he's also stealing from the club and his marriage is falling apart.
Isaac had just finished filming Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein and found he was losing his voice as Josh and feeling his throat tighten. Then an acting coach suggested he bring some of Victor Frankenstein into the role. How would Victor feel being trapped inside of Josh's small life? Then that constriction in his throat seemed right.
"[Josh is] an incredibly hard worker, and his love language is service," Isaac says. "But behind that, it's not a selfless service. He wants access, and there's something in him that feels he'll never be somebody that can become a member [of the club]."
Isaac is a Golden Globe winner who's moved between indie films and global franchises, from Shakespeare to Star Wars. The recently released documentary King Hamlet offers a glimpse inside his professional and personal life. Filmed and directed by his wife, Elvira Lind, the documentary captures an intense time in 2017 when Lind was pregnant, Isaac's mother was dying and Isaac was also in rehearsals for Hamlet.
"It's a peek behind the curtain of what it costs to do this stuff," Isaac says. "It's very intimate and it's revealing, but … hopefully useful for people that are interested in dedicating their life to being artists."
Interview highlights
On playing the manager of a country club in Season 2 of Beef
It's a very strange, foreign world to me. Although I did work at a golf club for a few months when I was 16. But it was more like weddings that would happen in this small golf club, and I was a bit more of like a waiter. I heard a lot of the same wedding songs over and over again and had get out of there. … That's about the age that Josh was when he started and he decided, "No, this is my way in." I did it in Lake Worth, Fla. This is in Montecito, [Calif., a] very different vibe. But I think he really sees, "I've got something special, and people like me, and I understand people, and I understand how to make them feel good." And I think he sees a way into this life.
On how Beef satirizes two generations with two couples
That's what's so fun about it, the satirical nature that Lee Sung Jin finds in this whole thing. And for us to be able to really explore that — the things that are annoying about Gen Z and the things that are really annoying about millennials, all of these stereotypes ... to kind of lean into some of those things, unapologetically. Like, kind of embrace the cringe, and also have compassion for those things. That's part of embracing it. … You form very quick judgments of these people because it's easy to, because they're kind of horrible. And then suddenly those expectations get turned on their heads.
On Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, which was imagined as a Mexican melodrama
There was kind of this maximalist thing that was happening, but that was deeply, deeply felt. It's like listening to a corrido … like mariachi music where it's so passionate and because it's ... [an] expression and celebration of both joy and pain at the same time. So I think it was that kind of point of view that was very exciting. … We spoke exclusively in Spanish to one another, which was so nice for me. I hadn't had that experience, certainly not with a director, really just with my mom and my aunts. So it felt like a real familial thing to do, and it's my mother tongue. So there was just something that just went deeper. It just went to some other part of my brain that usually isn't accessed in that way.
On his deep friendship with del Toro since the film
We speak nearly every day. I've gained this incredible family member. He's so passionate. I also describe him as the Mexican Buddha. He has such wisdom and such generosity and zero pretension, but also cares deeply about the work that he does as well. So he's just an incredible human being and a real advocate for other people and advocate for people's work. He doesn't ever trash anyone's work or speak negatively. I just found him to be an incredible example of how to be a person in this world, how to be a man, how to be an artist.
On bonding with other artists
I'm a little bit of a vulture of my own life. I’m in an experience, but there's always a little other part that's watching and eating up a little bits and pieces of real life that's happening and gonna use that for something later.Oscar Isaac
We are carny folk, we're circus people, but we need to hold onto each other because it is such a strange bubble to be in. And it's such an elusive thing that we're searching for, that we are trying to find together. And it's often a very humiliating experience. It's a humbling experience to be an actor, I think to be an artist, but particularly to be a performance artist. Your own self, your body, and your voice — that's the materials that you're working with, right? That's the high-wire act, I think, is watching somebody battle their own ego and embarrassment, and some people do it effortlessly, and other people do lots of other wild things to battle that.
On experiencing life through art early on as an actor
I don't know how to be a good son, student, friend, boyfriend, partner, any of those things … but I know that if I can figure out this part, if I could solve this puzzle, then everything will make sense. … I'm a little bit of a vulture of my own life. I'm in an experience, but there's always a little other part that's watching and eating up a little bits and pieces of real life that's happening and gonna use that for something later.
Lauren Krenzel and Nico Gonzalez Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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