Even if you don’t know anything about Moon Knight, you’ve definitely heard conversation about Oscar Isaac’s accent in it going around. And maybe you’ve asked yourself, why? Why of all things did Moon Knight go with a strange British accent for Oscar Isaac’s character? The accent really feels borderline absurd when you first hear it in Moon Knight‘s trailers. And the MCU show seems meant to land as a drama, not a comedy. But it turns out, the answer to why is Oscar Isaac. In a conversation with RadioTimes, the actor shares that his accent and general demeanor (as Steven Grant), were all his idea. And Marvel went with him on it.
Isaac explains, “It wasn’t necessarily written that way at all. And so I thought, ‘OK, well, let me see what Kevin says about this.’ And so I had a meeting with Kevin, I said, ‘This is how I’d want to do it.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, OK, go for it.’”
Yeah, ok, go for it, does seem to be the MCU way. And while it sounds like, even on set, the accent seemed absurd, it all worked out for the best. Isaac concludes, “And it’s funny because afterward, he told me they didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And they weren’t sure it was going to work at all. But you know, in the end, I’m glad we did that, because everyone says it kind of makes the show.” A round of applause to Marvel for trusting Oscar Isaac’s gut. This choice for Moon Knight’s accent required no small leap of faith.
We have a feeling that this has to do with how different Isaac’s spin on Steven Grant makes him from the other personalities that inhabit Moon Knight. Steven Grant accounts for only one of them, of course. And with Oscar Isaac playing every single version of the character, differentiating between Moon Knight’s personalities, not only in behavior but also in accent, probably helps the vision. We can see a little of that play out in the preview above. While we get a lot of Steven Grant now, we’ll probably see less of him and more of accent-less Marc Spector when the show really kicks into gear.
Well, there you have it. Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight accent always felt a bit ridiculous. But now we know, it also landed very effectively. We’d expect nothing less from Oscar Isaac. We can’t wait to judge for ourselves when Moon Knight releases on March 30.