In the character's history of swinging across our pages and screens, Spider-Man has always held some fairly consistent traits. He's just a kid who somehow ended up a superhero, he's got some pretty deep-rooted issues vis-à-vis a family member getting murdered and, despite it all, he's funny. Flinging self-deprecating quips like a web shooter is something that's created a throughline between the three live-action iterations by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, as well as the six Spider-Men (including one Spider-Pig, voiced by John Mulaney) we were introduced to in 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, which cracked the multiverse open into an awe-inspiring animated spectacle.
Now, five years on, the long-awaited sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, is flying onto screens and introducing us to, conservatively, a thousand new Spider-Men. All of them are pretty funny, bar one – Miguel O'Hara, voiced by Oscar Isaac.
O'Hara joins this film as the leader of a Spider Society tasked with making sure Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) stays in line so as to protect the multiverse. He, compared to his Spidery cohorts (which now includes characters voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, Andy Samberg, Issa Rae and Jake Johnson, returning as Peter B. Parker), is humourless, threatening and unsympathetic. His Spidey suit is decked out with claws and spikes, and he takes things Very Seriously. Basically, he's not the Spider-Man we know and love. “What's fun is being unique”, Isaac tells GQ about playing the grumpiest Spider-Man in the haystack.
As the Spiderverse expands further than we've ever seen it before, Oscar Isaac chats with GQ about playing it straight, giving his children action figures of himself and roping Pedro Pascal into the multiverse.
GQ: At the end of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse you were teased as a character just called ‘Interesting Person No.1’. Are you sad to lose that credit on your IMDB?
OI: No more ‘Interesting Person No.1’ role here. Did they change it now? Did they retcon it? I hope not on it. Well, "Interesting Person No.1' was fun, but man, Miguel O'Hara is pretty amazing as a character.
You're not like other Spider-Men.
Yeah, he's got this particular unique quality to him, but there are lots of things about him that I think are very surprising and make him such his own thing. The fangs and claws and this violence that's simmering underneath at all times? He's just a really interesting character.
Are you sad you didn't get to flex more of your comedy muscles?
I do think he gets to by the nature of him being the straight man, you know? So no, I wasn't disappointed at all. There was so much to do there, we laughed so much. Finding the humour with someone that just is so serious can be really fun.
People joke that voice acting is an easier gig, that you can just turn up in your pyjamas and clock out. But what challenges are unique to voice acting that aren't there for live-action work?
You only have your voice to be able to express a lot of what's going on. There's more collaboration involved because it's your voice, it's the animators, it's the design, it's all these things coming together to create the character. There's something beautifully communal about putting that together and just adding one element and then seeing it all come together. It's just such a beautiful work of art. The art in this thing is so incredible, but specifically with Miguel. The way that he transforms visually and becomes more feral as things fall apart, I just thought, was so, so amazing.
Do you know exactly how it's all coming together when you're recording your voice, or is it all a surprise in that first viewing?
I saw some storyboards and we've been working on it for three years now, so I've seen bits coming together. I've seen whole scenes, but it's still really surprising to see it all strung together. There's so much that I didn't know. There was so much that, when we recorded it, I may have imagined some of the scene was going a certain way, and now it's evolved into a whole new thing. It's quite different from filming things because you're there. Like, ‘I saw this, you know, I was in the scene, I know where the cameras were’. But this is a whole world that's created around just a voice.
This film is all about the repercussions of a mistake and what happens when you break the rules. What's the biggest rule you've ever broken?
Well, I did get I got kicked out of middle school for defacing a bunch of murals and spraying a fire extinguisher in the gym. And then there was a rule where, like, the school was built around someone's mansion? They had a big wall, and on the other side, there were a lot of exotic animals. So me and my friend jumped the wall and went in and started petting all the animals. It was a really crazy day. Then we jumped back over because the guy was really angry at us, so we ran to the school and sprayed the fire extinguisher. We just went nuts. So, we were invited not to come back.
What are we imagining by exotic animals here?
Like emus and tiny little deers. They were like guard emus, walking around like velociraptors.
You've played so many iconic franchise characters at this point, how many action figures do you think there are of you out there?
There are at least three now. Actually, there's a fourth, because I've seen a figure from Dune of Duke Leto.
Do you keep them around the house or does it feel vaguely haunting to see mini versions of yourself?
A little bit, but I'll give it to my kids to play with. Right now they're little, so they think it's fun. Maybe later it'll be a little weird seeing dad's body parts just strewn across the floor.
You've been in a fair few of these big, secretive projects now. Are you ever worried you're going to spill them after a couple of glasses of wine?
I mean, I do do that! I tell them to my friends and family, I can't help it. But it's not that hard [to keep secrets]. I got a lot of secrets! A few of the many. Just add them to the bucket!
This film, of course, adds so many new characters and voices into the mix. For the next movie, is there anyone you'd love to see join the fold?
I don't know. They're so brilliant at finding the right person for the right character, but maybe Pedro Pascal. Let's find something for him. He should be a Spider-Person, like a cranky, old Spider-Person.
Finally, you've said in the past that you and Jessica Chastain used to binge The Great British Bake Off on set. Are there any other comfort shows you're binging right now?
Drag Race! It's really comforting. I haven't gotten into the new All-Stars season because I'm still on the last one and I've got three left.
Have they given you the call for the judging panel?
Still waiting for that call!
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is out in UK cinemas now.
