Playing a superhero with dissociative identity disorder was always going to be a challenge, but for “Moon Knight” star Oscar Isaac, the key to unlocking it was just finding one of his personalities: Steven Grant. And, according to the actor, a subtle but crucial piece of Steven is the idea that he might be on the autism spectrum.
The first episode of the Marvel series, now streaming on Disney+, is a bit of a ride in terms of figuring out what exactly is going on in the life of Steven Grant. Viewers are thrown right into things, seeing life in snippets, as Steven himself does because Marc Spector takes control at times.
It was Steven’s side of things that Isaac got a grasp on first, though his interpretation of the character did include some big departures from the comics.
“Once I got a hit on Steven, and kind of had a take on him, and I brought that to Kevin, and they were willing to go with it, you know, even though it was a big swing,” Isaac continued. “You know, making him English, which is not how it was written, and making him maybe slightly on the spectrum, and just this very specific character, then it really — I don’t know, at that point, it really felt like we were making a story that was a point of view. You are in the skin of the character, and you’re seeing things happen the way he’s seeing it happen.”
You can watch TheWrap’s conversation with Oscar Isaac in the video above.
For what it’s worth, Isaac himself was a bit confused by the story at first too. Originally, he had early drafts of the premiere and the fifth episode in the series, and of course, there were a lot of things that needed filling in.
“It was. It was a bit confusing, but also, it wasn’t clear — the characterizations weren’t really there on the page yet, obviously,” Isaac explained to TheWrap. “So, it was about finding my way in, not so much from a plot standpoint, but really from a character standpoint.”
But once he found Steven, everything got clearer pretty quickly.
“On the outside, it’s confusing, but emotionally, it’s making sense because you’re with him,” Isaac said. “And I think that was the big challenge. It’s like, all this stuff’s not going to make sense. If you’re not with the character emotionally, then you know, it’s gonna just be a bunch of gobbledygook. But if you can really get the audience empathizing with them and feeling like they’re on the same journey, then we’re able to go as wild as we want.”
The first episode of “Moon Knight” is now available to stream on Disney+.