In 2011, I was an extra for Won't Back Down, a movie about a school in the inner city starring Viola Davis as a teacher and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a parent.
I was part of a big crowd scene. There was a really cute guy up with the teachers. I knew I recognized him but I couldn't figure out who it was and this bothered me.
After about an hour, someone yelled "Oscar!" and the cute guy left the school steps.
I realized it was Oscar Isaac. I turned to a friend and said "The last time I saw Oscar, he was naked!"
Well, naked on TV anyway. A few weeks earlier, I'd seen Robin Hood with a very attractive young actor co-starring as Prince John. The first scene in which Oscar Isaac appeared, he was quite naked.
But I had seen him at least one other time, as Orestes in the little seen-but otherwise excellent movie Agora. Agora starred a way too young Rachel Weiss as Hypatia, a scholar and librarian of the Library of Alexandria after her father's death. Oscar played a very tricky role very well, and I felt he was a potentially very interesting actor.
Like many science fiction fans, I'd read The Sparrow and Children of God, Maria Doria Russell's amazing books about an interstellar-traveling priest/linguist named Emilio Sandoz back in the '90s. There was some talk then that Antonio Banderas was attached to a possible production, and he would have been very good a Sandoz. That disappeared--perhaps the special effects needed to pull these movies off in the '90s wouldn't have been up to the tasks.
A few years later, though, Brad Pitt bought the rights to The Sparrow, and held them for a number of years.
Hmmm....Brad Pitt wouldn't be right for Sandoz...but Oscar Isaac sure would be. And by about 2010, CGI would have been good enough to pull off the necessary special effects.
I almost brought The Sparrow with me the next time I was called to set. I wondered if Oscar Isaac was familiar with the book and would want to be in a science fiction movie or two?
When you're an extra, you're not supposed to approach "the talent." I was usually pretty good about that beyond saying "Hi." Oscar was on set again, and this time there was more mingling between extras and "the talent" as a school festival was being shot. The assistant director sent Oscar over to one corner of the festival, and then sent me to the same corner.
So while we were waiting for the assistant director to call "Background!" (which is the call for the extras to start moving; this is said before the assistant director calls "Action!"), I told Oscar how much I'd enjoyed watching him in Agora (and did not mention Robin Hood).
"Thanks."
"Have you ever read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow? I hear Brad Pitt has the rights and you'd be a great Emilio Sandoz."
"Background!" the Assistant Director screamed and that was that. I saw Isaac from time to time, but we never had the chance to talk again.
Oh well.
At least we know now he has been in major science fiction movies, and he was very good in Ex Machina and the more recent Star Wars movies as Poe. He looks like he'll be an outstanding Duke Leto in Dune. And he's still not too old to play Emilio Sandoz.
