“HE’S THE ONLY ‘NOT-FUNNY’ SPIDER-PERSON”
OSCAR ISAAC BREAKS DOWN HIS “RELUCTANT RINGLEADER”, MIGUEL O’HARA
Was it a surprise to see how crazy people went for the first movie?
It’s always difficult to anticipate these things, but I did feel it was one of the most unique and amazing animated films I’d ever seen. It was alive and fresh and really funny. I was so glad just to do that one little bit at the end, so I got very excited when I got the call saying, “We see [Miguel] as a real character in the next one...”
How would you describe Miguel?
He’s the reluctant ringleader of these wild Spider-people. He’s annoyed at having to be the leader. He’s naturally someone of a heavier disposition — a loner — so a lot of the humour comes from him having to be this kind of kindergarten teacher.
He’s funny because he’s so serious. Exactly. He’s the only “not-funny” Spider-person. Which makes him funny [laughs]. It was fun crafting that with Phil Lord and Kemp Powers: finding that throughline where you can take the piss out of him because he takes himself so seriously.
We see snippets of Miguel fighting Miles in the trailer — is it fair to assume they’re at odds for much of the movie? Yeah. One of the themes of this movie is, where do you belong? What’s supposed to happen; what’s pre-ordained? A character like mine is trying so hard to control things. He wants to control the narrative, [as a result of] tragedies that have unfolded in his life. So, he gets tested when he comes up against a live-wire like Miles.
The design of Miguel’s universe — the futuristic ‘Nueva York’ — sounds incredible. Did you get to see much of it as you were working on the film? It’s an interesting process. It starts pretty wide open — all you’ve got is the script, and then gradually you get to see which seeds have grown, and how they craft visuals around that. The animation in the first film was so revolutionary, but in this one they take that idea and explode it. There is such beautiful [design] work in this movie.
Was there a lot of last-minute linetweaking with your character?
Yes. It helps that a lot of these characters are masked, so you can keep changing lines right up to the last second [laughs]. For something as seemingly rigid as animation, the amount of experimentation we got to do on this movie was really fun. Their [Lord and Miller’s] way of working is a beautiful combination of finding pathos and humour, but also making fun of it and being willing to try anything.
You also play Moon Knight in the MCU. Who’d win in a dust-up between him and Miguel?
It’s interesting — they have some similarities, actually. But the unpredictability of Moon Knight, the fact that he’s the man of a million faces... Yeah, I’ve got to go with Moon Knight on this one.
You told us last year that you’d tried out ideas for Moon Knight on your kids. Did you test any Miguel stuff out on them for this film?
Not really, but I did show them the first teaser [for Across The Spider-verse], and I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud to show my kids something I’ve been in. But of course they were like, “What? Why are you fighting Miles?!” It’s nice to share the excitement with them. It’s definitely more fun showing them this than showing them Scenes From A Marriage [laughs].