Oscar Isaac is one of my favorite working actors today, and his performance in Ex Machina is a masterclass.

I can just never get over his performance in Ex Machina. The dude is a performance beast, the humanity he displays in a character that lacks anything even remotely human is wild to me. The nuances in his performance, the moment to moment action and presence always feel like a master class. He never plays a 'Bad Guy,' he just plays a dude who believes what he believes.One of the hardest scenes throughout history in my opinion is in Hamlet, directly following 'To Be or Not to Be.' At that point Hamlet has gone fucking bonkers, he's accusing his girlfriend, the love of his life, of all of this nonsense, he's marching around playing fake soldier, he sortof totally slips into madness (or whatever) and starts saying all of this eloquent stuff that makes no sense. It's a really tricky scene to perform because the objectives are incredibly unclear, most every actor will have to create their own objectives and they'll all likely be different. It's widely considered to be a very intimidating scene. Benedict Cumberbatch actually did some really interesting stuff with it, but even then it's all over the place. Essentially it demands presence. If you're not totally in the moment in that scene, you're fucked.There's a scene in Ex Machina that always reminds me of that. If you've seen it you likely know exactly what I'm talking about, if not, watch this movie, it's on Netflix and it's brilliant. But that scene. The dance scene. A scene that makes NO sense even with context, where Isaac's character has gone far past the deep end of insanity. I know if I was given that scene I'd have no clue how to approach it. My guess would be that I, and many others, would play with how menacing it could be. But Isaac just dances, totally present, with seemingly no other objective than to dance.Which makes his character so much more fucked up!!! Here's all this crazy shit going on, he knows there's an attempted coux on him in this locked down complex and his robots may want him dead, and he HAS to take control of the situation. And how does he do it? By letting go! Any other human, in their right minds, would take action. But his characters lack of action highlights just how inhuman the guy is, how much empathy he lacks, and Isaac just NAILS it by leaning in.He never threatens the protagonist, he never plays the scene menacingly, he just fucking dances. It's totally nonsensical and completely unhinged, and if any actor leaned into the 'villanous-ness' of the moment, it would imo be considerably less impactful. By trusting the script and finding a non-complicated present objective, not only does he heighten the stakes of the entire movie ('what the fuck is this guy gonna do next? what the hell is he capable of?), but in my experience delivers one of the most memorable "evil" moments in years of cinema. The audience cannot help but feel totally trapped by his actions, all because he uncomplicates a moment that is, by all accounts, very complex. Again, I'd analyze that moment to death and back, but through trust in the script, he leans into Hamlet losing his mind, etc. There's so many examples of his finesse on screen, but his performance in Ex Machina will always feel like a mind blowing masterclass on how to play a human, even when it feels like there's none there.Fuck I love Ex Machina. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/36dVTZ2