The Oscar Isaac performance inspired by Karl Pilkington: “For the comedy of it”
Oscar Isaac is part of an exclusive club of actors who have tried their hand at multiple characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
As part of the pre-Disney X-Men run, he was near unrecognisable as the all-powerful titular villain in X-Men: Apocalypse – a major player in the comics. Sadly, the character was let down by a weak storyline and a franchise clearly running on fumes. Still, at least he jumped ship before Dark Phoenix came along…
Following that disappointment, his second outing came in 2022 as part of an official MCU property in the Disney+ miniseries Moon Knight for a much more critic-friendly outcome. Issac’s Steven Grant resurrected as the vessel for an ancient Egyptian moon god, which gives him special powers that allow him to don the titular moniker in his quest to quell crime.
However, it was not all straightforward, as playing Grant, who has dissociative identity disorder (DID), presented a significant challenge to Isaac. The character and his dark alter ego are unlike anything else in the MCU, so he couldn’t follow the blueprint set by the likes of Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans. In an interview with NME, he revealed that it was a highly unlikely source that helped him get the job done.
“I thought, ‘What’s an energy that I haven’t seen in the MCU before? Like, what if someone asked Peter Sellers to be in a Marvel movie’,” he said, elaborating, “I thought of Karl Pilkington. I was watching a lot of An Idiot Abroad, not so much for the accent, but for the comedy of it: like, you often don’t know if he knows he’s being funny. And there’s something a little bit naturally introverted about him, which I really liked a lot.”
For those of you who don’t know (and I pity you greatly), Karl Pilkington is a former radio producer who unexpectedly shot to fame in the UK in the 2000s. Through his partnership with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant on their radio show, and later a wildly successful podcast, he quickly became a national icon thanks to his, shall we say, ‘unique’ outlook on life. If you haven’t heard his stuff, then I urge you with all of my soul to track it down.
This might feel like an odd approach to making a superhero series. A bald man from Manchester who is primarily known for complaining about jellyfish and misremembering idioms doesn’t exactly scream ‘blockbuster’ on the surface. However, Isaac actually makes some excellent points. In An Idiot Abroad, the travel series in which homebody Karl is sent to various locations around the world against his will, is a journey incredibly similar to Grant’s. He is also a mild-mannered guy who unwittingly finds himself in quite extreme situations. Both men are your classic ‘fish out of water’ characters with more than a hint of the pathetic about them.
Karl Pilkington is, quite frankly, a genius, and every actor, nay, every person, should study him with academic intent. Isaac was spot on in identifying his greatness and was able to generate a fantastic performance based on his glorious idiosyncrasies; Suzanne must be so proud.
