Humans are mutants, everything's a mutant - things that evolve.
— Oscar Isaac
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.
I've been fortunate to be working mostly right out of school. Every year, there was a little something, and it kept the confidence going. It's about confidence and the belief.
I'm very happy to have the heritage that I do, but I'm not wanting to be 'the Latino actor.' I just want to be 'an actor.'
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.
I'm really sick of anthems. Every song has to be a very big singalong thing - it feels very Eighties. There are a lot of 'whoah whoa whoahs,' this stadium thing. You're even getting that from some of the 'folk' groups. I can't stand it.
In a play, you dictate pace, you dictate rhythm, you dictate when people look at you, when people should be looking at something else. In film, the editor does that.
J. J. Abrams is amazing.
I think Shakespeare really got it. He was the first one to introduce psychology to villains and give them a real point of view.
I'm open to the idea of doing more musicals if it's one that I really enjoy.
Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.
Being someone with Latin roots, so many doors are constantly closed for you because people put you in a category, and the thing I've always wanted to avoid is categorisation.
I actually started playing in little cafes around New York, and I have a lot of good friends of mine who are musicians who are struggling in New York.
You can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.
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.
Anything that's made by humans is about humans, whether it's about gods or aliens or anything; it's about some sort of expressive nature about us.
'Cool' is detached and emotionally cool. My instinct is to battle anything that seems overly cool.
In the 1960s, there was a forward way of speaking and inflection.
The self-made man that some people believe is a myth? It could be, because you do it on the backs of other people.
Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.
I've never been interested in celebrity.
Advice? Look at your pay statements.
I wouldn't mind seeing The Smiths reform. That would be cool.
The very first proper play I did was 'Godspell,' and I played the guitar for it, and I had a small part in a high school play. And before that, in sixth grade, I wrote a musical about Noah's ark.
I was interested in the war part of 'Star Wars,' so I started reading about what it's like to go to war, what that does to you psychically, about the adrenaline and the rush.
I grow up in the States, in Miami, but I was born in Guatemala, and my father's Cuban, and in 'Body of Lies,' I played an Iraqi.
I feel like being an artist and being an activist are separate things; I know some people who feel very differently.
People resent movies that try to tell them exactly what to feel.
The motivation is important for me to act it, but I don't necessarily want the audience to know my motivation.
I've always liked acoustic blues. I liked Bob Dylan a lot.
The better I am at observing moments in life, the better I'll be at showing them in my acting.
What you wear can be such an indicator of so many things. You know, how you feel, how you want others to perceive you. So, that is an absolutely essential part of building a character.
My family are huge 'Star Wars' fans.
I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.
The songs I've written that are the strongest, I'm like: 'I don't know where that came from. It just kind of popped out.' You feel you can't take a whole lot of credit for it. I didn't purposefully will it into existence.
Talent is very hot.
There's nothing scarier than unlimited choices.
I really just like characters who you don't know where they stand for a long while. It's like people. You hang out with them for 10 years, and then all of a sudden they do something, and you say, 'Who are you?' That's more interesting. In life and on-screen.
A personal game-changer was when Ridley Scott cast me as King John, the King of England, for 'Robin Hood.'
I wanted to shred, so I learned classical guitar.
I always like teaser trailers because they don't give too much away, you know? They give just a flavor of what the thing is.
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.
Every frame of a Coen brothers movie is filled with history and meaning, and the deeper you go, the deeper you get. That's why their movies stand up particularly well to repeated viewing and investigation.
That first play I did in New York, Rogelio Martinez's 'When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba,' I played a young Fidel Castro.
I remember the first time my mind was blown by an actor was Tim Curry, because I loved 'Clue' when I was a kid, and then I was watching the movie 'Legend,' and the Devil suddenly smiles, and I was like, 'It's the same guy!' It was a total Keyser Soeze moment.
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.
I have been playing acoustic music for a very long time, and it's something that I am very comfortable doing, so if I made a record, it would probably be a mixture of that and some other things that I'm interested in.
Anybody who dedicates himself to exploring the human condition, there's always a detached eye that's watching. In any situation, a little part of me is observing it, to see if there are any raw materials to create something else later.
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.
I was always - maybe stupidly so - very confident.
