Oscar Isaac: “We Latin American actors don’t just know how to play villains”

Oscar Isaac continues to break away from Hollywood stereotypes of the Latino actor and, following the success of “Inside Llewyn Davis” by the Coen brothers, is again a critics’ favorite with “A Most Violent Year,” a tense drama in which he teams up with former classmate Jessica Chastain.

“We Latin American actors don’t just know how to play gangbangers and villains. I’ve had the luck to play characters from all over the world, and that for me is very important,” the Guatemalanborn Isaac said in an interview with Efe.

“A Most Violent Year” finds Isaac at the height of his career, since he will also appear in “XMen: “Apocalypse,” the last of the “Star Wars” saga, and in the science fiction thriller “Ex Machina.”

Though “A Most Violent Year” debuts this Friday in U.S. commercial theaters, the film has already earned him the Best Actor award from the National Board of Review (tied with Michael Keaton for “Birdman”) and a nomination for the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

“I want to help Latin American actors see themselves as real actors, that we’re really very good. It’s hard but it’s possible,” the actor said, adding that his Latino origins are present in every part he plays.

Isaac is Abel Morales in “A Most Violent Year,” a man who embodies the American dream in the New York winter of 1981, when the city was sunk in crime.

Abel and his wife (Chastain) are owners of a family business selling fuel for home heating systems and find themselves dragged down by the daily violence, robberies and corruption of this crimeridden year, at odds with his belief in ethics and legality.

“What was hard to understand was the mentality of a businessman. Abel has ethics but at the same time treats people like objects,” Isaac said about his character, who struggles between morality and the possible awful consequences of not paying his bills.

But his wife Anna (Chastain) provides the stability he needs by always urging him to put his family first, even if it means betraying his principles.

The understanding between Chastain (nominated for a Golden Globe for this role) and Isaac is constant in a story that combines action with drama heating up over a slow flame, which, the actor says, is the fruit of a long friendship of more than 12 years.

“Jessica and I met at the Juillard School in New York and we became friends. She went to my premieres and I went to hers,” he said.

Isaac, the son of a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father, grew up in Miami, but studied drama in the city of skyscrapers, which is why “A Most Violent Year” makes him feel “right at home.”

Isaac won Hollywood’s attention with his role as the troubled singersongwriter of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” for which he was nominated as Best Actor for a number of prizes including the Golden Globes, while his big boxoffice films include the likes of “Agora” (2009), “Robin Hood” (2010) and “Drive” (2011).