In Disney+ and Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac stars as Steven Grant/Marc Spector, a superhero with dissociative identity disorder powered by ancient Egyptian myth. The role required the actor to commit to challenging character work opposite himself; in many scenes, he had to perform full sequences as Moon Knight and his multiple personalities. To do it as authentically as possible, Isaac applied a tried-and-true method that anyone with siblings can relate to.
“Well, the first step was to hire my brother, Michael Hernandez, to come in and be the other me, it’s the closest thing to me there is,” Isaac said at Moon Knight’s global press conference, which Gizmodo attended. “So he came in and he would play either Steven or Marc, even with the accent and everything — both accents. That was really helpful to have someone that’s not only a great actor, but also shares my DNA to play off of.” Basically, roping in his brother to help put on a show! Of course, doing it for a Marvel superhero show required a bit of finessing.
“Something that I didn’t anticipate was how technically demanding that was going to be, having to show up and decide which character I was going to play first and and then try to block that out, give my brother notes and then do the scene and then switch characters and then figure it out,” Isaac said. “Because one of the fun — I think maybe it’s not the most fun thing about acting — is acting opposite somebody and letting something spontaneous happen that you didn’t expect. But there wasn’t really an opportunity to do that and still having to try to find what makes it feel spontaneous and not all planned out. So that was that was challenging.”
But hey, brothers doing favours for one another is family rules! And Hernandez, who’s a journalist for the Miami New Times, definitely owed his big bro for this delightful chat about Oscar’s childhood and most distinguishable features. (Watch the video, trust us.) And it just so happens that Moon Knight is not the first time Isaac has played multiple characters in one project. He revealed in his recent SNL opening monologue he’s done it before by sharing some home videos of himself as a child playing The Avenger (not to be confused for The Avengers).
Moon Knight premieres March 30 on Disney+.
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