Quotes from Oscar Isaac

My dad was a doctor, but he was just always, like, going from hospital to hospital for some reason.

Talent is very hot.

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.

I think it's good to be a little more fearless in saying what you feel. In not being scared of the repercussions of that.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

People resent movies that try to tell them exactly what to feel.

I like the idea of the comedy of resilience.

My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff.

I get attached to things: I wear the same jeans for a year.

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.

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.

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 was in bands, but they were punk bands, and you plug in the guitars, you turn them up really loud, you've got four or five other people on stage with you, you've got some protection from when they throw lighters. You can always hide behind the lead singer or the bass player.

I was never much of a singer. I was terrible. It's embarrassing: I was trying to sound like everybody else. I went through a big Cure phase, so I was trying to do that kind of dramatic voice.

Jessica Lange was my biggest crush when I was a kid.

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.

If you can find a way that your principles are actually the strategically smartest thing to do, you've kind of figured it out.

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.

It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.

A personal game-changer was when Ridley Scott cast me as King John, the King of England, for 'Robin Hood.'

The idea of not getting a gun is not because I'm afraid of guns, it's not because I think guns are wrong, it's because it's impractical, it's stupid and it's exactly what they want me to do.

I feel like being an artist and being an activist are separate things; I know some people who feel very differently.

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.

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.