NEED TO KNOW
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Oscar Isaac’s wife Elvira Lind made the documentary King Hamlet about the intersection of the actor’s personal and professional worlds
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King Hamlet screened at the DOC NYC documentary festival Nov. 14 and 15
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Isaac’s mother Eugenia died in 2017
While grieving his late mother, Oscar Isaac decided to translate some of her insightful final words from Spanish to English.
The Guatemala-born Frankenstein actor, 46, lost his mom, Eugenia, in 2017, while prepping to star in Hamlet at the Public Theater in New York City.
His director wife Elvira Lind‘s new documentary King Hamlet, which screened Nov. 14 and 15 at DOC NYC, follows Isaac through a period of grief and new beginnings in his personal life, as tied to his taking on the emotionally grueling title role and newlyweds Lind and Isaac preparing for the birth of their first child. In addition to covering Eugenia’s illness and death, the film documents the impact both had on Isaac’s tight-knit family.
In King Hamlet, Isaac reveals that he wrote down “a lot” of what his mother said before she died, including some especially moving words.
“‘Everything goes back to the ocean. The ocean takes back everything. The only thing it doesn’t take is love. Love never goes out,'” Isaac recites, translating his mother’s words from Spanish to English.
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/WireImage
Oscar Isaac and his mother at the ‘Robin Hood’ afterparty in 2010, during the 63rd Annual Cannes International Film Festival.
His mother’s illness is a source of tension and pain throughout the period covered in the documentary, and Lind showcases the emotional journey from multiple angles. She captures many of Isaac’s personal phone calls relating to his mother, including one where he says she has surpassed the doctors’ estimate of her life expectancy.
“A week ago, they gave her 24 to 48 hours of life left. That was a week ago,” he says.
Eugenia’s eventual death devastates the family. Between scenes of Isaac rehearsing lines and watching Lind’s pregnant belly grow, family meals and gatherings allow for moments of reflection and mourning.
“It’s sad for us, Lord, that we let her go to you, Lord. And I’m just happy and joyful in my heart that she is at peace and that she is with you,” Isaac’s brother Mike Hernandez says at a family dinner following Eugenia’s death.
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Elvira Lind and Oscar Isaac attend the ‘King Hamlet’ premiere during 2025 DOC NYC on Nov. 14.
The timing of her death, in February 2017, coincided with a busy period in Isaac’s life. That year, Isaac married Lind; welcomed their first child, Eugene; and starred in Star Wars: The Last Jedi — on top of his preparation for Hamlet. Juggling work, grief and a demanding personal life gave Isaac a greater appreciation for the play; he found “meaning” through Shakespeare’s classic.
“I literally was sobbing, and then the moment that I was able to think about the play a little bit, it got me out of that,” he says in the documentary. “And it’s like, literally, the play is the only salvation that I could find.”
Now, eight years after his mother’s death and his final bow as Hamlet, Isaac says he is “thankful” for a record of that period in his life.
“It is a miracle that it exists,” he said of his wife’s work during a Nov. 14 Q&A following a King Hamlet screening at the DOC NYC documentary festival. “Already in theater, we know, is sort of ephemeral and is meant to show up and go, and the fact that this document exists in that way is a miracle.”
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Elvira Lind and Oscar Isaac at the 2023 Soho House Awards.
During the Q&A, Isaac got the entire theater to go “aw” in unison with a loving comment about his wife.
“But really, the miracle is that Elvira came into my life,” he said of the woman he’s been with since 2012. “And that she does what she does, which is, she never runs away from the sharp edges of life. She doesn’t try to sand them down.”
He also praised her bravery in sticking to her artistic agenda “in the midst of chaos and pain and uncertainty.”
He views the film as an expression of her love for him and their two children, Eugene and Mads.
“She… dared to pick up the camera and to film, as weird and challenging as you can imagine that is with your loved ones, and then so many years later, to look at it and have the courage to like, ‘Oh, I’ve got something to say with this,’ and then now it’s presented,” he said. “It’s, for me, it’s a very inspiring thing.”
Read the original article on People