‘Moon Knight’: the keys to the series that introduces Oscar Isaac into the Marvel universe

“I have a little flu, but nothing that does not prevent me from attending the press and less if it is a brother from Spain.” oscar isaac (Guatemala, 1979) begins his interview with FOTOGRAMAS in Spanish, but soon asks to switch to English: “It’s not for nothing, he assures us, it’s just that I have to do the rest of the interviews in English and I already have the answers memorized in that language to the most typical questions that they are going to ask me this afternoon. Now ask me the atypical ones!”

There will be some of it (yes, we are not original) because we all want to know what is behind the new Marvel / Disney television bet that is ‘moon knight‘.

Night guard

Created by the writer Doug Moench and drawn for the first time by Don Perlin, moon knight He first appeared in the Marvel universe in 1975 in issue #32 of ‘The werewolf‘. He would achieve his own collection at the beginning of the 80’s almost always with Moench writing and the great Bill Sienkiewicz to the pencils.

“It was very popular in those years,” Oscar Isaac demonstrates knowledge. “More than the Batman of Marvel, he was like The Shadow, a kind of urban night watchman who hid in various personalities through costumes and makeup. The approach that Jeremy Slater has made in our series respects the classic iconography of the character and his character of night watchman, but has turned the pulpy idea of ​​a hero with multiple wanted personalities into something more psychoanalytic…and disturbing.”

The powerful influence of the moon

Darkness, restlessness… aren’t we going to go down a path that has been the most common in DC film adaptations,’Batman‘ the first? “No, ‘Moon Knight’ doesn’t steam there,” Isaac rolls his eyes (via Zoom). “We are talking about a character with personality dissociation who perceives reality in a way that he never knows or the viewers either, because the series always adopts the point of view of Steven Grant, if what is happening to him is really happening , if those presences that seem to possess him, like Mark Spector, exist. Is there a mythological conspiracy at work? Eternal forces on the prowl? Is Moon Knight a hero, a vigilante or a simple lunatic? No, the main referent of the series is not Batman or The Shadow, it is ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ (A. Lyne, 1990)”.

Moon Driver

“I didn’t think, and I’ve already told you that I had answers ready, that this interview would be the place and the occasion to talk about Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader and ‘Taxi Driver’, but you’re right!”

Oscar Isaac, whom we have congratulated for his work in ‘the card counter‘ precisely from Schradertry to fit this atypical and nocturnal masked man from Marvel that is Moon Knight with the nights of psychopaths and lonely guys that Travis Bickle, the character of Niro in ‘Taxi driver‘.

“People who go to see superhero movies are going to have fun, have a good and very entertaining time, but here, in ‘Moon Knight,’ my character is not funny, he is not Deadpool, and the tone is sometimes very independent, urban film. Very Scorsese. With fights, gadgets, supervillains, Marvel winks, but very Scorsese or Schrader”.

New to Marvel

Oscar Isaac can boast of having been a boy Coen (‘About Llewyn Davis‘), having worked with Alejandro Amenabar in ‘Agora‘ (“It was very nice,” the actor switches to Spanish) and being the Poe Dameron of the universe starwars.

Has he come to Marvel to stay? “Well, I’ve been there once” –that blue-painted villain from ‘X-Men: Apocalypse‘ (B. Singer, 2016)– “and I thank you for not reminding me of it”, laughs the Leto Atreides of the ‘dunes‘ from Denis Villeneuve. “Marvel can have Moon Knight when and how they want and I’ll be there. With this series, which may have a second season, and a third, a tone has been established that I liked very much, very interesting. I spoke a lot with Kevin Feige, which is the great factotum of this MCU, and with the directors, Justin Benson and Mohamed Diab and Aaron Moorhead, about the tone and doing something new. In fact, there was no figure of the showrunner. Everything has been very indie. If you respect the character as it is here, that they call me without problems”.

My friend Ethan

The Schrader connection follows at ‘moon knight‘ With the presence of Ethan Hawke [‘El reverendo (First Reformed)‘]. “He’s a very good friend of mine and I convinced him to get on the show,” Isaac tells us. “He made excuses like he’s not very into this type of genre or making TV. We were also at a time when filming was stopped due to COVID-19 and work is work, and now the best offers come from platforms like Disney or Netflix Of course, the entire shoot was spent, which was in Budapest and with all the security measures due to the pandemic, very involved in the role and in all aspects of the production. It could be a bit heavy (the Stanislavski method, already you will understand me) asking about the motivations of his character, details of his wardrobe, his characterization, but he was not the typical famous actor who plays bad with the autopilot, cashes the check and then denies having been in a movie or series based on a comic. No one was surprised to see him sitting with the script in one hand and a copy of the comics in the other taking notes. You know what would be something wonderful now? Convince Martin Scorsese to direct an episode if they greenlight a second season“.