The Cure albums that changed Oscar Isaac’s life
Born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father, Oscar Isaac made his first major feature film just a year into his studies at the Julliard School. For the next few years, he took on supporting roles in films like Body of Lies, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, and Agora, where he starred alongside Rachel Weisz. However, he is perhaps most associated with 2013’s Inside Llleyn Davis. Directed by the Coen brothers, the folk-heavy comedy-drama won Isaac his first Golden Globe nomination and led to roles in big-budget sci-fi films like Ex Machina and Star Wars: Episode VII. Here, we join the actor as he discusses his favourite record by The Cure.
As a teenager growing up in Miami, Florida, Isaacs played lead guitar and sang vocals in a few different bands, the chief of which was a ska outfit known as the BlinKing Underdogs. The group broke up in 2005 after Isaac landed a place at New York’s revered Julliard School. His love of music remained and played a big part in his being cast in Inside Llewyn Davis. “I play around the city once in a while,” Isaac told Erik Nagel when asked if he’s still writing and performing his own songs. “Although often I feel – it’s been a little bit difficult with the writing – I often feel like Domnhall [Gleeson’s] character in Frank when I’m trying to write because it’s just not coming to me anymore.”
Back in 2020, Isaac sat down with NME to name some of the records that have soundtracked his life. Discussing the song that changed his life, the actor selected The Cure’s 1992 shoegaze-tinged album Wish, released shortly before the Britpop explosion of the mid-1990s. “I was so obsessed with this album, but no one thinks it was their best one. It was really the band at the point of disintegration… But you know what? ‘From The Edges Of The Deep Green Sea’ is one of my favourite songs of all time and the first song I truly fell in love with. Then, as an adult, Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’.”
The Cure seem to have been on constant rotation when Isaacs was a teenager. Discussing the impact of Staring At The Sea: The Singles, the first album he ever bought, Isaac said: “The singles collection was my introduction to them. The Cure were the first band where I wanted every album of theirs because their music seemed to fit perfectly with everything that was happening in my adolescent life.”
You and me both, Isaac. You and me both.
