Oscar Isaac Promises Moon Knight Will Take Mental Health Seriously

Oscar Isaac Promises Moon Knight Will Take Mental Health Seriously

Oscar Isaac promises Moon Knight will take its mental health aspect seriously and says the creative team’s job was to put a lens on it.

Oscar Isaac promises Moon Knight will take its mental health aspect seriously and says the creative team’s job was to put a lens on it. The upcoming series will mark Isaac’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in which he stars as Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift shop employee suffering from a sleep disorder and blackouts. However, Steven begins to have memories of another life and his true identity of Marc Spector, a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder who has become the conduit for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu and an obstacle to cult leader Arthur Harrow.

Alongside Isaac, the cast for Moon Knight includes Ethan Hawke as the antagonist Harrow, May Calamawy as Layla El-Faouly, a woman from Marc’s past, Gaspard Ulliel as Midnight Man and F. Murray Abraham as the voice of Khonshu. The MCU series hails from The Umbrella Academy developer and upcoming Mortal Kombat 2 scribe Jeremy Slater with Mohamed Diab leading the directing team, which includes independent sci-fi/horror genre duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. As time draws nearer for Moon Knight’s premiere, those behind the series are offering new insight for what’s to come.

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Related: Moon Knight’s Trailers Are Avoiding MCU Baggage

In a new behind-the-scenes featurette released by USA Today, Oscar Isaac opened up about Moon Knight. In discussing the show’s depiction of the character, the star promised that the mental health aspect of Moon Knight is being taken seriously and explained how the creative team set out to do so. See what Isaac shared below:

“It’s a real, legitimate character study. Our job was to put a lens on the things that had the most dramatic juice and ultimately take the mental health aspect very seriously.”

Oscar Isaac in Moon Knight

The exploration of mental health in film and TV is a tricky narrative to develop and has seen everything from the Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the critically derided Me, Myself & Irene. Throughout development on Moon Knight, both Isaac and Marvel head Kevin Feige have confirmed that the show would seek to properly explore Marc coping with his dissociative identity disorder. Comic book fans were certainly relieved to hear such while general audiences were both intrigued and concerned for if a superhero show could properly tackle this element or if it would mischaracterize it in an effort to keep audiences captivated with a juicier story than most other titles.

Isaac’s promise that Moon Knight is taking the character’s mental health seriously should hopefully assuage some of these concerns. Trailers shown for the series thus far have indicated a proper exploration of Marc’s DID, namely as they’ve pointed towards a multitude of his identities being depicted and the extended screen time they appear to be getting. Only time will tell how audiences respond to this element when Moon Knight premieres on Disney+ on March 30.

More: Why Moon Knight’s Portrayal Of His Mental Illness Will Be Crucial

Source: USA Today

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Grant Hermanns
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Grant Hermanns is a News Writer, Interviewer and Hiring Manager for Screen Rant, having joined the team in early 2021. Way back in 2015 while still in his college days, Grant got his start in the entertainment journalism industry with creator-friendly site Moviepilot until it shuttered nearly three years later. From there he joined the staff at ComingSoon.net and was its Associate Editor prior to coming over to Screen Rant.

To say he’s a lover of film and television would be an understatement and when he’s not mass consuming either you can find him exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends or slowly making his way through his gaming backlog.

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