‘It’s completely surreal’ — Star Wars fan Oscar Isaac on dream role in J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII

IMAGINE you are a massive Star Wars fan, with all the toys and themed parties thrown for each new flick. Then J.J. Abrams wants you to feel the force.

OSCAR Isaac “felt a shift” after being cast by the Coen brothers as the titular character, a struggling folk musician, in their film Inside Llewyn Davis.

Was it a disturbance in the force the New York actor was sensing?

Not long after Inside Llewyn Davis exited cinemas, it was announced Isaac would travel to a galaxy far, far away ... in the new Star Wars movie.

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TITLE: Film Clip: 'Inside Llewyn Davis'

Director J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII reboot began shooting in London in May. While Isaac’s role remains unknown, the “serious actor” air around him suggests his part will be neither little nor lightweight.

Yet the kid inside this 35-year-old actor is having a hard time being at all serious about Star Wars.

J.J Abrams (top centre right) at a cast read-through of <i>Star Wars Episode VII </i>with (clockwise from right) Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Producer Bryan Burk, Lucasfilm President and Producer Kathleen Kennedy, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Andy Serkis, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Writer Lawrence Kasdan. Picture: David James.

“It’s completely surreal. I would never have imagined I would be a part of the universe,” says Isaac. “Star Wars was a huge part of my family: my uncle and cousins, we all would collect the toys, and every time a new movie came out we’d throw a themed party for it.”

When it came to telling his family the news, he adds: “There’s nothing bigger that I could ever have said ... I’ve topped it now, with this.”

The chance to steer the Millennium Falcon is enough to make Isaac’s previous acting gig look dull.

Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac and Kirsten Dunst in a scene from film <i>The Two Faces of January</i>.

In The Two Faces Of January, all he, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen got to do was roam freely about some tourist attraction in Athens. What’s it called again? Oh yes, it was only the Parthenon.

“It had been decades since anybody had been able to shoot inside the Parthenon,” Isaac explains. “We didn’t have the authority to completely close things down so it was a very strange way of shooting — there were hundreds of tourists just outside of shot. Incredible.”

Based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith (who also wrote The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers On a Train), The Two Faces Of January is an intense and picturesque thriller set in the 1960s, following a US couple (Mortensen and Dunst) on the run in Europe.

Isaac says he is attracted to characters “where you question their motives: are they good or bad?”

They meet a shady tour guide, Rydal (Isaac), who looks up from his swindling of pretty American tourists long enough to be intrigued by the couple. He is then drawn into helping them when their hoity veneer begins to crumble.

“I’m attracted to characters where you question their motives: are they good or bad? What do they want?” Isaac says. “That makes people more interesting to watch, when the characters seem to be shifting.”

Tourists weren’t the only factor making the Two Faces shoot a little bizarre. The economic crisis in Greece had protesters flooding the streets.

“We’d be shooting this very luxurious, laid-back scene, then cut, then I’d be walking down the street and there’d be people running the opposite way with handkerchiefs covering their face from teargas,” says Isaac. “What a juxtaposition.”

After trying his hand at being a rock singer in his youth, Guatemalan-born, Miami-raised Isaac studied acting at New York’s famed Julliard.

Oscar Isaac played Jose Ramos Horta alongside Anthony LaPaglia as Roger East in <i>Balibo</i>.

One of his earlier film jobs brought him to Darwin — not the usual first stop for visitors to Australia. So how did he come to play a young Jose Ramos-Horta, the future leader of East Timor, in the 2008 film Balibo?

“That was just (director) Rob Connolly. I guess he had seen my work in other movies and reached out to me,” says Isaac.

“What an incredible story that is and what a fascinating figure Ramos-Horta is. That’s the only place I’ve been in Australia, Darwin.”

If Isaac has his way, he will be back. Chatting about co-stars, Isaac claims he doesn’t get geeky about the prospect of working with revered actors.

But as he prepares to go, one suddenly springs to mind.

“I thought of someone that I geek out at the prospect of working with: Cate Blanchett.”

Isaac was in 2010’s <i>Robin Hood</i>, but didn’t get to work with Cate Blanchett, here with Russell Crowe.

Didn’t he already work with Blanchett on Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood?

Yes, he says, “but we didn’t have any scenes together and that always really bothered me”.

■ The Two Faces of January opens today

Originally published as ‘It’s completely surreal’ — Star Wars fan Oscar Isaac on dream role in J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII