After wowing moviegoers with impressive performances in the likes of A Most Violent Year and Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac's career looks set to explode following the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and X-Men: Apocalypse. In a recent interview with Black Film, he was asked about how it feels to have the trailer for the latter play in front of another movie he's starring in right now (you know, the one which is likely to be 2015's biggest). "It’s very cool," he said. "It’s going to be in front of Star Wars when they show the trailers in theaters. I’m very excited. We’ll see how many people realize that Apocalypse and Poe are the same person." Asked how it feels to be taking on two significant roles in such huge and higly anticipated movies, Isaac added: "It’s great because they are so vastly different from each other. They are completely different characters. I’m just having fun at this time and I’m really thankful and blessed that I’m getting the opportunities to play different roles and let’s people know that they never know what to expect from me."
As for what's inspired his take on Apocalypse, it sounds like there will be something for everyone:
"Depends which comic you are talking about. There’s X-Factor, there’s X-Men, there’s The Age of Apocalypse, there’s the animated series, there’s X-Men: Evolution, so when someone says Apocalypse without referring a comic book, it’s a very general question. They may want to state which is their Apocalypse first. He’s definitely not going to be everyone’s favorite version of Apocalypse, but he’s my favorite version of Apocalypse. It’s something from the 80s mixed in with something new. They either create a backstory that he was this mutant from Ancient Egypt that found this technology and they explore that story or they send him to another universe where he’s more powerful than he’s ever been. He’s turned all these other X-Men into villains. There are different ways that artists and creative people get the chance to explore his story on a massive scale if they do. In this one, Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg took the inspiration from many different sources, many different versions of Apocalypse throughout the ages and found the one that we thought was the most interesting."
While we all know that it's not essential for an actor to be a fan of the source material, you may be glad to know that Isaac then went on to talk in detail about his love of the character and stories he's been heavily featured in. This is great to hear, and if you've seen any of the Isaac's movies, you'll definitely know that he's going to kick ass and steal the show in X-Men: Apocalypse next year.
"I love Apocalypse. I grew up collecting X-Factor. I remember when the first comic book came out, and for me, especially because I grew up in a religious household, I knew about the book of revelations, the second coming, the Apocalypse, and then you see this comic book character that is supposed to embody all of these ideas. For some people they just thought he was this big blue guy and it was survival of the fittest, but for me, that was less interesting. The most interesting part for me was the Blibical aspect and end of the world and the revelation of the way things were before."