Star Wars fuelled by Poe-mania

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This article was published 09/01/2016 (3775 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Star Wars: The Force Awakens breaks box-office records all over the galaxy, Oscar Isaac is suddenly everywhere. The 36-year-old actor, who plays Resistance fighter pilot Poe Dameron, is the charismatic king of the celebrity GIF, the all-singing, alldancing darling of late-night talk shows. He has us all silly and swoony, practice-writing “Mrs. Poe Dameron” on our scribblers and ordering $250 Poe Dameron body pillows. (Yes, those are a thing now.) Basically, Oscar Isaac is the universe’s boyfriend.

In a spirit of pure and disinterested pop-culture inquiry — and absolutely not because of the dizzying effects of Isaac’s sculptural jawline, intense gaze and soulful way with folk songs — we will attempt to figure out the whole Oscar phenomenon.

THE STAR WARS EFFECT (ON SCREEN): Obviously, it doesn’t hurt that the Guatemalan-born, Miami-raised Isaac is in the biggest movie of all time. Add in the fact Isaac plays a cocky flyboy who’s funny and fearless, and you’ve got loads of star potential.

Basically, the character of Poe mixes Luke Skywalker’s gee-whiz good-boy enthusiasm with Han Solo’s leather-jacket bad-boy appeal. He rolls the original trilogy’s Luke-or-Han romantic conundrum into one beautiful have-it-all package.

Oscar lovers also adore his bromance with Finn (John Boyega) — the pair has already been dubbed “Finnpoe” by some hopeful fans — and that “boy and his dog” act with BB-8.

THE STAR WARS EFFECT (OFF SCREEN): Isaac also aced the super-scrutinized Star Wars media circus, remaining jokey and modest through endless rounds of interviews, profiles, appearances and premières. Practically Cumberbatchian in his self-deprecating charm, he rested his head longingly on the shoulder of the statuesque Gwendoline Christie, nudged Lupita Nyong’o, hugged Adam Driver and broke out the guitar.

THE “I LIKED HIM BEFORE IT WAS COOL” FACTOR: On the one hand, we’ve got Star Wars hype drawing in millions of new Oscar Isaac fans. On the other hand, we’ve got the connoisseurs, who disdain this Janey-comelately passion, this fickle, blockbuster-fuelled fixation.

These discerning Oscar lovers want to make it clear they were into him way before J.J. Abrams’ box-office-busting space saga. Sure, it’s easy to see the star’s outsize charisma when he’s all toothy smiles and catchy taglines, they say, when he’s leading a squadron of X-wing fighters and battling evil.

How about recognizing that charisma in Show Me a Hero? In this HBO series about bureaucracy and housing policy in Yonkers, N.Y., Isaac spends a lot of time being put on hold, loitering at the copy machine, wearing a cheap brown suit and downing vodka and Maalox.

How about falling for him when he plays the mopey, misanthropic anti-hero of Inside Llewyn Davis? In this sad-sack Coen brothers film, Isaac walks through wintry New York City in a thin coat and wet shoes, holding a cat he doesn’t even like, alienating friends, family and former lovers.

And the ultimate indie Oscar fan? Well, she first spotted Isaac back when he was the bespectacled translator in Che, Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour subtitled saga about the Marxist revolutionary hero. So there.

THE UNDENIABLE GOOD LOOKS: Sure, the current GQ cover boy is gorgeous. ClickHole jokingly refers to Isaac as a “jagged spar of Hollywood throb.”

But the movies are full of gorgeous men, sometimes blandly beautiful to the point of being interchangeable.

Handsome is as handsome does, which brings us to the last point.

THE ACTING CHOPS: Here’s a refreshing new angle on the whole starmaking process: The idea that an actor might succeed because he’s really, really good at acting! In his pre- Star Wars work, Isaac is often compared to 1970s guys like De Niro and Pacino. Like them, he walks a tricky line between character actor and leading man, between hero and villain, between volatile machismo and needy vulnerability.

His characters always have a complexity to them. Whether he’s playing a businessman trying to keep his hands clean in corrupt ’80s New York ( A Most Violent Year), a bullet-headed ex-con and would-be family man ( Drive), or a frightening, faux-friendly tech trillionaire ( Ex Machina), the Juilliard- trained actor somehow evades expectations.

Take that crazy, cool, come-outof- nowhere dance scene in Ex Machina — you know the one.

As Isaac moves from overlooked actor to overexposed superstar — he’s slated to continue his handsome hero act in the next Star Wars flick, as well as taking on the supervillains in X-Men: Apocalypse — let’s hope he can keep hold of that unpredictable quality.

After all, that’s why we fell for him in the first place.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca