Oscar Isaac Made The Card Counter To Take A Break From ‘Green Screen Space Land’
Focus Features By Jeremy Mathai/Sept. 2, 2021 4:37 pm EST
One of the things that makes Oscar Isaac such an exciting performer is that, when it comes to choosing his next role, he’s steadily developed an ability to follow the most interesting stories and characters — regardless of genre or budget or target audience. Having starred in “X-Men,” “Star Wars,” and now “Dune,” he’s displayed zero compunctions about starring in green screen-heavy blockbuster movies … even when he maybe shouldn’t have, in retrospect. Well, Isaac reaching his limit with the demanding and mentally draining production of big-budget filmmaking ended up informing his decision to sign on for “The Card Counter.” Isaac’s loss turned out to be both his and writer/director Paul Schrader’s gain.
Oscar Isaac Made The Card Counter To Take A Break From ‘Green Screen Space Land’
Focus Features
By Jeremy Mathai/Sept. 2, 2021 4:37 pm EST
One of the things that makes Oscar Isaac such an exciting performer is that, when it comes to choosing his next role, he’s steadily developed an ability to follow the most interesting stories and characters — regardless of genre or budget or target audience. Having starred in “X-Men,” “Star Wars,” and now “Dune,” he’s displayed zero compunctions about starring in green screen-heavy blockbuster movies … even when he maybe shouldn’t have, in retrospect. Well, Isaac reaching his limit with the demanding and mentally draining production of big-budget filmmaking ended up informing his decision to sign on for “The Card Counter.” Isaac’s loss turned out to be both his and writer/director Paul Schrader’s gain.
A Change of Pace
Warner Bros.
Blunt and to the point, I like it. Isaac has certainly earned a respite from those other types of performances, which typically have demanded little more than his natural charisma and charm as opposed to any real intensive acting. In fact, it was his obvious chemistry with John Boyega that helped convince J.J. Abrams to reverse course and save Isaac’s Poe from certain death in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” It’s debatable whether the rest of the Sequel Trilogy did much to justify his continued presence in the movies (I would say that “The Last Jedi” is the only film to actually treat him as a character who undergoes an actual arc), but who can begrudge him those paychecks? That doesn’t seem to have been the case with “The Card Counter,” which brought Isaac back to his classically-trained roots by presenting him with the challenge of how to portray his character’s nebulous past in the film. The solution: masks.
“I’ve been in green screen space land for quite a few years and I was desperate to do a character study.”
We’re going to hazard a guess that “Dark Phoenix,” “The Rise of Skywalker,” nor his upcoming performance in “Moon Knight” required that he go to similar lengths to prepare for those roles. In any case, this all makes his presence in “The Card Counter” even more intriguing. The revenge-thriller arrives in theaters on September 10, 2021. Check out the synopsis below:
“In prep I wore a mask. I went back to my theatre school at Juilliard and worked with one of my favourite teachers there who does a lot of body work. We did three days in a studio where I put on a neutral mask.”
Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader’s THE CARD COUNTER. Told with Schrader’s trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions, and features riveting performances from stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe.
