A fractured superhero
Actor Oscar Isaac talks to Michael Idato about taking on a superhero character with inner trauma.
The name is not one that rolls off history’s comic book pages: Batman, Iron Man, Superman, Aquaman . . . Moon Knight?
‘‘I collected comics. I’d never heard of this guy before,’’ says actor Oscar Isaac, who is starring in Marvel’s new television series about an unlikely addition to the superhero genre.
Unlike most superhero stories, where both mythology and technology tend to overtake the character notes, Moon
Knight feels more closely connected to rival DC’s iconic Batman in that its comic book pages are as devoted to fastpaced action as they are to deep dives into the inner trauma of the main character.
And as a man – and a former mercenary – with dissociative identity disorder (DID), Moon Knight is not so much an ordinary mortal with a superhero identity, but a single superhero with several extraordinary alter-egos.
Marc Spector is his real name, but his other identities include the mild-mannered Steven Grant and the more streetwise detective Mr Knight.
‘‘Moon Knight is a study of the human mind,’’ Isaac says.
‘‘For me, that is what was so exciting. Then I found that I had an incredibly willing partner in [president of Marvel Studios] Kevin Feige. He was excited to push the envelope and allowed for conversations about every aspect of the show to make it a very personal story as well.
‘‘I hadn’t expected that it was going to be the most creatively collaborative experience of my career,’’ Isaac says.
The series explores ‘‘what the mind is capable of when it needs to survive, where people, to survive horrible, awful sustained abuse and trauma, can create an alter that can take on the abuse and an ‘alter’ that has no idea that it’s happened’’.
The psychological disorder has mostly been sensationalised in movies, Isaac says.
Among the better known films that explore the issue are The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which starred Joanne Woodward; Frankie & Alice (2010), which starred Halle
Berry; and perhaps the most famous, Sybil (1976), which starred Sally Field.
‘‘[Moon Knight] is definitely a fictitious version of it, and we in no means are saying this is a true to life, complete exploration of it, but emotionally it was incredibly important that’s what the key of it was,’’ Isaac says.
‘‘I found that we could use the language of this genre to create this psychological thriller and in the middle of it create a really indelible, beautiful character.’’
Despite his unfamiliarity in the cultural mainstream, Moon Knight has a comic book lineage that goes back to 1975. The character was created by writer Doug Moench and artist Don Perlin, and the character first appeared in the Marvel comic book Werewolf by Night #32.
Bearing in mind that almost every comic book origin story is tweaked in its infancy, or substantially later on, Moon Knight’s story roughly mirrors the television series: a former marine and CIA agent who is killed but then returns, fully healed, after experiencing an encounter with the Egyptian god of the moon, Khonshu.
I saac did not completely immerse himself in the comic book history, but he did sit down with a bound volume of the original comic stories.
‘‘I won’t say I read every single page of it, but I did go into it and kind of see the evolutions of what happened,’’ he says.
‘‘I was definitely inspired, but also it was clear that this character was so mutable.
‘‘It’s almost like every writer took him as a totem and allowed them to just go and play with wherever their imagination took them. So, it felt like that gave us licence to take the spirit of it, take the things that felt resonant and emotional to us and then try to eschew from some of the more cliched elements of it.’’
The casting of Ethan Hawke as Moon Knight’s nemesis Arthur Harrow, a cult leader who is connected with another Egyptian god, ‘‘the devourer of the dead’’ Ammit, gives the series an unusually cinematic quality given its two leads are more frequently seen in movies.
In truth, Hawke’s casting was a random twist on the fact that Isaac and Hawke live near each other and, during a random
conversation at their local coffee shop, Isaac took a chance and asked Hawke if he was interested in joining the project.
‘‘We made a date to have some tequilas, got really drunk and talked about it. And then I got him to say yes.’’
Though much is made of the pop culture-as-modern mythology idea – the most notable example being parallels between Superman and Jesus Christ as otherworldly saviours who sacrifice themselves for mankind – Isaac does not think that comic book stories, even those that dip consciously into real-world mythologies, are creating new mythologies.
‘‘I think they’re more like the Busby Berkeley musicals of the day,’’ he says. ‘‘They’re the big show in town, and sometimes people get in there and they, within the confines of that genre, find new ways of telling stories.
‘‘You use the basic revenge genre, but you do something within that’s highly emotional and political.’’
Though the comic book resides more fully in the idea that former mercenary Marc Spector is the alter-ego of Moon
Knight, the television series gives substantial screen time to Steven Grant, a mild-mannered man whose view of the world is wholly sincere. He is a very different touchstone for a superhero alter-ego.
‘‘We definitely are introduced to the world through Steven, and I think that was a really smart take by [series creator] Jeremy Slater, who kind of cracked the code before I got on board,’’ Isaac says. ‘‘I inherited the structure, the basic skeleton, and then from there we really fleshed the whole thing out.
‘‘It’s not going to be a traditional origin story that’s totally chronological in that way,’’ he adds.
‘‘You get introduced in medias res [that is, in the middle of the story] and for me, what was most important is that its point of view is the characters, so you, the audience, are in his skin, living this life.
‘‘That mystery unfolds [for the audience] as it unfolds for him.’’
D‘Moon Knight is a study of the human mind . . . what the mind is capable of when it needs to survive.’ OSCAR ISAAC
ecades ago, a story like Moon Knight might have used a character note like dissociative identity disorder in a fairly superficial way.
But, in 2022, there is a more robust dialogue about mental health taking place in the media, and Isaac says that conversation informs how the condition is dealt with in the show.
Before filming commenced, Isaac read the book A Fractured Mind, by Robert Oxnam, in which the author, a noted scholar, unearthed his own ‘‘alter’’ identities and explored them. ‘‘It’s a must-read for anybody,’’ Isaac says.
‘‘I just think it’s just an astounding book. And because it’s much more common in women than in men, you don’t often get the story from that point of view.
‘‘Really diving into this book, using the language, understanding what it was like for him to find out that he had this at such a late stage in life . . . to tell that story and abstract it by putting into the genre, like all good sci-fi does, where it deals with things but gives you some distance to talk about it in this way, I hope that is powerful for people.’’
Moon Knight is now screening on Disney+.