Oscar Issac talked to the Daily about his performance as Llewyn Davis in the upcoming Coen Brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis." The movie details the life and troubles of Davis, a struggling folk artist living in New York in the 1960s.
Tufts Daily: Can you talk about the research that you did for the role? Obviously, it's based on Dave Van Ronk, so did you read "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" [Van Ronk's memoir]?
Oscar Isaac: Yes, I did read that, and "Chronicles," which was Bob Dylan's account of the time, and he had some history with Van Ronk, so that worked well. But mostly it was from talking to people who were there in the village when it was all going down, and that was really useful.
TD: Did you have any expectations about working on set with the Coen brothers? And were any of [your expectations] met?
OI: There's never a desire to not stick to the script. They write in such a great way, and with such a great rhythm and cadence, that once you walk in to it, you wouldn't want to do anything else. That was unexpected ... They didn't talk much about the symbolism or the meaning of things - any of those big ideas or thematic ideas. It was all very practical, which was unusual. Also, the fact that they never compliment. They don't compliment anything.
TD: How did they communicate [to] you the tone that they wanted for the film?
OI: Tone is definitely the most important thing for them. You just read it and talk about it with them, but they don't dictate what you're supposed to be doing. They don't say, "You need to act in this style, you need to do it this way." They leave it open. That's why it's kind of a phenomenon - their tone is so specific, yet they're not controlling it.
TD: To me, the Coen brothers are just a [singular] directing entity
