Star Wars: Oscar Isaac Says He Felt More Creative Control on The Rise of Skywalker

With a franchise as precious as the likes of Star Wars it would be easy to imagine a world where a vice grip is placed on the creatives attached to the films, especially with a film that has a lot riding on it like “the end” of the Skywalker saga. One would be surprised to learn then that isn’t the case at all, that production on these blockbusters has plenty of levity while filming as the cast and crew try different things. Director J.J. Abrams has previously expressed how his work on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was “Freer” from the constraints he once put on himself, with thanks to Star Wars: The Last Jedi for reminding him to work that way. Abrams’ “freer” work style applied to the cast too as star Oscar Isaac has revealed.

In a new interview on Sirius XM, Isaac (who returns as Poe Dameron in the sequel) was asked about the collaboration between he and Abrams, who allowed more freedom in trying different things while shooting scenes for the sequel.

“There was a lot more scenes were shot in ‘Oners’ (one shot takes), which means there wasn’t ‘Okay, now we shoot your close up and now we shoot my close up.’ What that meant was that he was giving up a bit of control because when you do it that way you can very much control people’s performance. But when you do these long takes people are talking over each other and you can’t cut around stuff. So i think it meant he trusted the performers, he trusted that we understood who the characters were and he let those dynamics play out in real time with each other, and I think that was a lot of fun.”

Isaac went on to discuss how surprising it was to see this mentality of filming on a project of this size, and how unexpected it was for Abrams to not nitpick everything in the film to make sure it’s all right.

“Often, it’s amazing, a movie of this size with so much pressure you’d think that he’d be micromanaging it to such an extent that you wouldn’t want to lose control over it as the person leading the whole thing. But I found that he was just willing to shake things up and try something else, let’s try a different line here. If I came up after a few takes and I said “Could I try doing it like this? With this kind of energy?” He’s say “Go for it,” and sometimes it would work, often it wouldn’t work at all and we’d go back to doing what we were doing before, but the fact that he was willing to make space for that was really exciting.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is directed by J.J. Abrams and also stars Daisey Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Carrie Fisher, Kelly Marie Tran, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, Joonas Suotamo, Anthony Daniels, Jimmy Vee, Dave Chapman, Brian Herring, Mark Hamill, Billie Lourd, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Keri Russell, Dominic Monaghan, Richard E. Grant. and Greg Grunberg. The official synopsis for the film reads:

“Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams join forces once again to take viewers on an epic journey to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the riveting conclusion of the seminal Skywalker saga, where new legends will be born and the final battle for freedom is yet to come. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens in U.S. theaters on December 20.”