Oscar Isaac Quotes

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.

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.

I think that when you decide to dedicate yourself to creative endeavors and surround yourself with people who are creative, you very quickly learn how hard it is to survive doing those kinds of things, not to mention make a living at them.

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 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.

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.

I don't know if they were all functioning, but I did play in a bunch of bands.

I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college.

I've written a lot of music, so to be able to put that together and play some shows around the country and elsewhere - that would really be a fun thing to do.

J. J. Abrams is amazing.

The better I am at observing moments in life, the better I'll be at showing them in my acting.

I'm so bored by business and money.

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.

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.

I would always find a way to blow the deal and I'm not sure why. I think there was part of me that wasn't comfortable with monetizing the music and getting involved with royalties and all that kind of stuff.

I always joked with my parents. I told them, 'If I don't make it as an actor, my fallback is musician.'

I grew up in a very devoutly Christian home.

I guess 'Scarface' was the Cuban Al Pacino.

My family are huge 'Star Wars' fans.

What's most interesting about trying to figure out AI is the questions that it forces you to ask about the nature of consciousness.

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

Early on - certainly in acting - you really have to take whatever you can get. So I understand well how difficult it can be to be in this position where people are just not hearing what you're trying to say or are saying. I recognize that.

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.

The self-made man that some people believe is a myth? It could be, because you do it on the backs of other people.

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.

When I moved to New York, I had to let my band know that I couldn't play anymore, and that was difficult to leave that behind.

I wouldn't mind seeing The Smiths reform. That would be cool.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

I had a great conversation with Tom Waits, of all people.

I've always liked acoustic blues. I liked Bob Dylan a lot.

It'd be crazy to say just because an artist is not successful that means he's not talented. I don't think anybody really believes that, but sometimes it feels that way.

When I came up to New York to do a play, I passed by Julliard, and I was like, 'Oh I heard of this place.' I applied, and ended up getting in.

I started off thinking that I just needed one shot to prove myself, but then I realised that I was only going to learn about acting by doing 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.

The performances had to be live. When you play it back, you can see if the hands aren't really doing the right thing, and then the whole magic falls apart.

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.

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.

There's very few people - like Shakespeare - who, no matter what, were gonna do what they did. For the rest of us, there's a lot of events that have to happen in order for things to end up the way they are.

For me, with a character, you start with the shoes.

In the 1960s, there was a forward way of speaking and inflection.

Max Minghella is a very close friend of mine, and I talk to him regularly.

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'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.

To be able to shut off your emotions drastically, I think that the only way you can do that is if you have some of sociopathic qualities.

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

What's funny in 'The Mayor of MacDougal Street' is how Dave Van Ronk talks a lot about the time and how exciting it was and how electric it was.

I've listened to Dylan my entire life. My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff. It opened up a whole world of this music that I'm now obsessed with.

A movie set is like a petri dish for neuroses, you know? It's just, like, egos and weird personalities and, more than anything, fear.

I'm open to the idea of doing more musicals if it's one that I really enjoy.

The hardest things to do in any art is to risk failure and put yourself out on the line.

'Cool' is detached and emotionally cool. My instinct is to battle anything that seems overly cool.

All of my high school issues are resolved!

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.

When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.

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

Most actors, if you ask them if they play guitar, they'll say they played guitar for 20 years, but what they really mean is they've owned a guitar for 20 years.

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.

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.

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.

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

I think for some reason we're conditioned in movies that the protagonist must be heroic or redeemable in some way, whereas in theater, that's not a necessary.

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.

There's nothing scarier than unlimited choices.

I've never been much of a guitarist. I mean, I've played forever, but I was always more of a rhythm kind of guy. I don't read music.

I like the idea of the comedy of resilience.

I think Shakespeare really got it. He was the first one to introduce psychology to villains and give them a real point of view.

If it was never new and it never gets old, then it's a folk song

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've done movies I'm very proud of, but there's always a sense of: 'Come see this shiny new car!' The question I hate the most is: 'Why should people see it?'

Humans are mutants, everything's a mutant - things that evolve.

There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck.

I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.

I was always - maybe stupidly so - very confident.