From the second Moon Knight was first announced to be in active development as a Disney Plus series, Oscar Isaac was immediately installed as one of the front-runners to land the title role.
Long before his casting was officially announced, one of the potential drawbacks was the actor’s vocal desire to stay away from big-name franchises for a while. Having endured a miserable experience playing the villain in X-Men: Apocalypse before recurring as Poe Dameron across the Star Wars sequel trilogy, it was understandable that he’d want to recharge his batteries on some smaller, more intimate projects.
In the end, Isaac was convinced to board the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the six-episode event, but that’s where his association with Marvel ends for the time being. Speaking to Variety, Isaac again admitted that he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted to commit to such a massive property, but knowing that he was the number one choice for the part allowed him a greater degree of freedom when it came to crafting his performance.
“I thought there was an opportunity to create a very different kind of indelible comic character to bring you into the world gently, and to basically get the audience on his side pretty quickly. So that once stuff starts going crazy, you’re with him, and you’re already rooting for him. You can you feel for his terror at not knowing what’s happening to his mind or his reality.
I was in a position — because I wasn’t actively looking to get back into something this big — to say, ‘This is how I see it, and if you guys don’t see it that way, that’s totally okay, but then maybe it’s not the right fit’. And so I wasn’t afraid that I was going to do the wrong thing.”
Based on the reaction to Wednesday’s premiere, giving Isaac the leeway to put his own stamp on Marc Spector has already worked out a treat for Moon Knight as a show, and the MCU fanbase at large.