Oscar Isaac says he sees Moon Knight, which released earlier today, as a "celebration of the power of the human mind."
Moon Knight stars Isaac as Steven Grant, a man with dissociative identity disorder who finds himself tangled in a supernatural mystery involving Egyptian gods and multiple personalities. Speaking to Esquire, Isaac opened up about the ways in which the new Disney Plus series tackles mental illness and works at removing the stigma often attached to it.
“It’s a celebration of the power of the human mind,” he said. “It’s basically saying, We have a superpower and it’s the human brain, particularly for those who deal with trauma and sustained abuse. There’s this thing that the brain can do to allow them to survive.”
The ways in which Moon Knight takes on these issues is very personal for Isaac, too. He talked about how his uncle, who struggles with mental health, was affected by the actor's performance and the manner in which the show deals with these themes.
“He started crying watching an episode of Moon Knight because, I think, it just felt like being seen," he said. "There was something there that felt like an acknowledgment of the pain and what people do with pain, and the forgiveness, of how you forgive yourself, and how to come to terms with the child within you.”
Co-star Ethan Hawke, who plays the show's terrifying villain Arthur Harrow, called Isaac's performance "masterful" and "intensive," singing the actor's praises for his dedication to the role.
“There are some actors—and you see them in a Marvel movie, or any big studio movie—and, like, they cashed out," he stated. "They got to a certain level of fame and now they’re going to make a bunch of money and phone in a performance and they’ll get back to what they really love. Oscar didn’t do that. He worked on both of these characters differently."
In our review of Moon Knight's series premiere, we said that the debut "asks for patience as it offers very few specifics about poor Steven's mental state, but Isaac's "everyman" is such an endearing rom-com style fool that it all makes for an enticing introduction to a very unique crusader."
Moon Knight's first episode is available to stream exclusively on Disney Plus right now and will release a new episode weekly through May 4.
Billy Givens is a freelance writer for IGN
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