Oscar Isaac and Teyana Taylor both embrace morally complicated and deliciously outsize roles this year. In Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” veteran actor Isaac plays a version of the titular doctor who, in this telling of the classic Gothic tale, beats and chains up his creature creation (Jacob Elordi). And in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” Taylor — a recording artist and choreographer whose dramatic-acting breakthrough came as a heartbroken single mother in the 2023 indie drama “A Thousand and One” — catalyzes the movie’s chaos as the ambiguously motivated, possibly traitorous Perfidia Beverly Hills.
Oscar Isaac: When I first saw “A Thousand and One,” I was so blown away. I was like, “Where did this person come from?” It was such a well of emotion — it felt like, “I don’t even think she knows there’s cameras on.”
Teyana Taylor: I had just retired music and was like, “I want to pour into everything else that I love. I don’t want to be stuck in one box.” Everybody [said], “We don’t think that’s smart.” When I took that leap of faith, I was so scared, but I knew I had to walk on this faith journey. Not even a month after I retired from music, this role comes across my desk — that’s nothing but God. I knew I had a point to prove; I had work to do.
Isaac: So you had closed the door to music?
Taylor: I did. I thought I was closing the door for good, and I was OK with that. I wasn’t going to allow people to back me into a corner. I usually let people do that — it’ll be me against the whole room.
Isaac: It felt like you brought that into it — it’s somebody against the world.
Taylor: It made it easier to find her layers and color-coordinate them.
Isaac: I’ve been thinking about that word “vocation.” What’s our calling? Acting is an element of that; music, for you. But the source of it is something deeper. It feels like you access that source. It feels like it’s coming from some real fiery furnaces. Did you train in acting? I know you had done “Stomp the Yard.”
Taylor: Taking it back! Honestly, I’ve just always been a character. As I got older, kids would play and I would watch movies — some, probably, I should not have been watching. I’ve always been into how an actor can emote. I always wanted to be Julia Roberts or Kate Winslet. (“Girl, you are eight years old, what do you mean?”)
As I got into music, everything else was put to a back burner. I didn’t get the opportunity to go to classes and study it the way I would’ve liked to. Once I started to feel claustrophobic in the music space, I was like, I need to pour into other things that I love.
Isaac: Particularly storytelling.
Taylor: It was such a passion. Timing is everything: I always say, the wait is not punishment; it’s preparation for what was already written for you. If everything went my way, I wouldn’t have been the same Perfidia in “One Battle After Another.” I had to feel some shit to know how to channel these emotions.
Isaac: It’s funny. We can get so resentful — why didn’t I get that chance? This idea of loving your fate, because it’s exactly where you need to be.
Taylor: I don’t think anything will fall into line. That’s why I thrive in complex roles, because it’s just so much built up in me that I’m able to color-coordinate every single layer of mine and apply a layer to this character. I do have a few layers for Perfidia.
Isaac: Let’s talk about Perfidia. Perfidia! Faithlessness; the betrayer. That name is like Shakespeare.
Taylor: It’s such a good name. I wish it didn’t mean what it meant.
Isaac: She’s the character that everything is in relation to as the movie plays out. That’s a lot of responsibility. That opening shot, you are walking with such command, and, immediately, there’s this gravity with the way that you’re walking, scoping out that detention center. It reminds me of you as a dancer — the command of your body. There’s a full awareness of what your body is communicating.
Alexi Lubomirski for Variety
Taylor: Maybe it’s the choreographer in me. Everything is just a flow. I’m an over-communicator — so if we have a conversation and we’re talking about what this scene feels like, I just do it. What makes it easy is the color-coordination of layers.
Isaac: You’ve said it twice: color-coordination. What do you mean?
Taylor: The scene with Perfidia and she’s walking out from the baby and Bob: She don’t cry, but you see this face that she makes at the baby, and you see the face she makes when she looks at Bob. All that happened in less than five seconds. When I’m looking at baby Willa, this is the color of She is my soft space. So I’m pink. But then when I roll my eyes up, I’m instantly red. And when I walk out and this is the new consciousness, I’m blue.
Isaac: Do these colors come in beforehand or while you’re doing it?
Taylor: I find it in real time. I work under pressure.
Isaac: You can see she’s so heartbroken by this thing, but at the same time, pulled by a real commitment of what it means to live a revolutionary life.
Taylor: On top of that, she’s dealing with postpartum depression. Finding those layers, I’m all about this. But at the same time, I’m dealing with this, and no one’s showing up, and I’m all I’ve got. I need to be free, and you want me to stay home and play house.
Isaac: You bring so much of your own personality into these things. I think about the scene when you guys are by the campfire, and you’re just going wild. Was there a lot of improvisation?
Taylor: Yeah, it was. With PTA, we always joke about the chaos to be determined: “Chaos TBD.” That’s what it says on the script. When we get there, he says, “Go.”
Isaac: Is improvisation a tool that you love?
Taylor: At the end of the day, this is still somebody else’s vision. You want to make sure you respect the vision. I feel like I’m still a student, so I’ve got to prove the point and make my professors proud.
Speaking of that, your work ethic is so insane. I can literally name 50 different movies …
Isaac: Yeah, I’ve been around a while.
Taylor: But, then, you don’t look like it. You make me excited for when I start really getting up there. I’m just not going to age, because you’re not aging! You’re giving me hope that I just will not age. But because you’re a fucking legend, how do you prepare for roles? Do you ever get stuck in any of your characters?
Isaac: I don’t know if I’ve ever got stuck in something. I did have a hard time when I went into another project after “Frankenstein.” It wasn’t until I brought back Victor to talk for a moment that I realized.… After “Frankenstein,” I was playing a character that was quite tight and small; Victor was still in there, angry that he had to be in this tiny little sad man.
There was something about playing Victor that was very freeing and pleasurable. He is a character that loves pleasure — a bit like Perfidia. There was something about playing somebody so unhinged, with no regard for moral judgment, that it’s this vitalist energy that was really exciting and pleasurable to play. Leaving that was really hard.
I’ve started to add in a ritual. I show up in the morning and do a little ritual just to get my nervous system ready. To thank the ancestors and begin in a place of openness. And then at the end of the day, even more important, I do a little ritual to say, Thank you, body. Thanks for being open, and now you can release. I’ve got kids and stuff to do, so I don’t need your help anymore.
Taylor: Victor was just insane. Do you feel like that was the most intense character you’ve ever played?
Alexi Lubomirski for Variety
Isaac: Energy-wise? Yeah. The energy required for this particular person that just does not stop, can’t be caught, is moving and running away. The creation of the creature was three weeks in rain and those high-heeled boots, running up and down steps. But del Toro, when he’s sitting there with that wide smile, just feeds you energy. It didn’t feel like I was alone. It’s a big character and it’s heightened: It was very much like an opera, like a dance.
Taylor: What was one of the most difficult scenes on a personal level, through any of the movies that you’ve done?
Isaac: Well, obviously, the really difficult one is when it’s not working, when the self-consciousness comes in. But there were so many that were very hard in “Frankenstein”; interestingly enough, the last scene between the creature and Victor.
Taylor: Did you feel bad when you were beating him?
Isaac: No.
Taylor: Oh my God, Victor! You are selfish!
Isaac: I wasn’t supposed to! When you yell at yourself, do you feel bad that you’re yelling at yourself? That’s how I was thinking about it.
Taylor: I’m talking to you like you’re actually Victor Frankenstein; that’s how good the movie is. Why would you show him what the sun is to take it away and lock him in the basement in darkness? What made you treat him like a monster?
Isaac: This is a very extreme version of “How can an adult treat a child that way?”
Taylor: Even though he’s seven feet tall, he’s still a baby!
Isaac: I’ve had to catch myself with it, too, treating your children as extensions of yourself, as objects of pride or shame. And then the loss of patience; to be able to lose your shit with your kids. This is an extreme version where he never thought past creation. All he sees is, “I’m going to be judged by this, and I don’t understand that, and I just want to run away from it.” The way you run away from it is you lock it down there.
Taylor: You’re running away from your true self. It’s a reflection of you, and, yeah, “I have to run away from this now.”
Isaac: Perfidia has to go through that as well, right? She loses the baby.
Taylor: Walking away from my baby, it was hard. It was a hard scene because I wanted to cry. Perfidia, don’t cry.
Isaac: The scene at the end was really difficult — the forgiveness scene. It was the first scene we did together with Jacob.
Taylor: Now I know that probably was hard. The level of grace from the monster was … I don’t even want to call him the monster! This is a baby! But it did show grace. Again, to lock him into darkness was a lot. But what I’ve realized with “One Battle After Another” is that these things have to happen for one to rise. Perfidia had to make these mistakes for Willa to rise. We have to anchor the movie for the rest of it to prevail.
How was the chemistry-building? Did you and Jacob know each other already?
Isaac: No. We met once, briefly, in Guillermo’s office. The first time I saw him as the creature was on set, the day that we filmed the last scene. There was no chemistry-building; there was chemistry in action. He approached it in a way that was very vulnerable and raw and open. We played it like it’s one person. On the one side is pure awareness, and on the other side is pure ego. Those two things come together, finally, at the end.
How about you? Sean Penn. the thing with Sean …
Taylor: They’re toxic. They are toxic.
Isaac: I don’t judge her at all. She sees a bit of a freak in him, and so she sees a vulnerability. So she starts playing into that vulnerability.
Taylor: It was a pissing contest. They both had a lot of pride and were egocentric …
Isaac: Warriors.
Taylor: Exactly. Two fucking warriors. It was about power for Perfidia. And at one point she just got greedy. But it’s crazy. The bathroom scene was our first time ever meeting each other. So he was already in gear. I was like, Oh, I’m not bothering him. I’m a fan, but I’m not a pest. I mind mine. Drink my water. I do not play. When they yelled cut, he was like, “I love you. I’m such a big fan.”
Me and Leo were already buddies for a long time, but we never worked together before. I don’t bring the personal into set. This is not like, “Oh, that’s my homie.” This is still Leonardo DiCaprio and I’m still just little old me. So I’m nervous. But how he mentors, it doesn’t feel like one is above the other; he meets me where I’m at. My job is to be present for my scene partners, and be present for my director and my DPs.
Fortunately for me, I’ve seen the best of them be so warm and kind. It made me feel comfortable, and I was able to get into that bag. We didn’t really get to meet each other—
Isaac: Or rehearse?
Taylor: No. And I like to film the rehearsals too. I tell P.T., “Catch every fucking thing.” I think I’m more relaxed. Something about “Quiet on the set” — my nerves just go.
Isaac: You’re interested in directing as well, right? So it must have been an incredible master class.
Taylor: PTA was just a super master class. Because not only am I directing, but I’m also in culinary school to become a chef. I started using culinary terms — “Master Chef PTA. Let him cook! He’s a master chef.”
Isaac: Culinary school as well — how do you have time?
Taylor: It’s actually the thing that gives me a few to just be quiet and cook. It’s an art. But when I signed up and realized I had business classes and all other types of shit, I was like, Oh, shit, baby. So now I’m on my way to the “One Battle After Another” premiere on my iPad doing schoolwork. But it keeps me grounded. Some stuff you’ve got to let sit for three hours before you can cook it. Culinary school and working with PTA really geared me up. I feel like I’m going to be a great director. It might sound weird, like, All this from learning how to make a steak?
Isaac: I think you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re so astounding — all the energy to do this.
Taylor: It’s all about balance.
This is a conversation from Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors. To watch the full video, go to CNN’s streaming platform now. Or check out Variety’s YouTube page at 3 p.m. ET today.
Production: Emily Ullrich; Agency: Nevermind Agency
