Best Of: Malala Yousafzai / Oscar Isaac

At NPR, we are here for your right to be curious about the world around you. Follow shortwave wherever you get your podcasts, because the more you ask, the more interesting the world gets.

From the UHY and Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Malala, UCF site. She was only 11 when she started to demand the right of girls to go to school after the Taliban invaded her town and banned girls' education.

“She was 15 when she was shot by a Taliban gunman. Looking back now, does she think she understood the risk that she would become a Taliban target?”

I had pictured it many times that this could happen. I had pictured it at school. I had pictured it at my school bus. I had pictured it on the street. I knew that the Taliban could do anything. Also, we hear from actor Oscar Isaac. He's currently starring in the Netflix series Beef, and recently played Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. And Marie and Carg and recommends three books for spring reading. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. As remarkable as it is that my guest Malala, UCF site won the Nobel Peace Prize when she was 17.

There are remarkable ways she's been living her life since then. Let's start with a famous part of her story. She was born in 1997 and grew up in a remote region of Pakistan, Swat Valley near the Afghanistan border. In 2008, after the Taliban invaded her town, terrorizing the people, they banned girls' education. She publicly spoke out for her right and the right of all girls to go to school. As payback in 2012 when she was 15, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. She was flown to a hospital in England where she continues to live.

Her recovery was miraculous. It's when I read her recent memoir, Finding My Way, that I learned how the bullet changed the course of her life, thrusting her into a new culture, and changing her in ways that didn't quite fit her public image as an inspirational hero and top student, and sometimes even challenged her own self image. When she was admitted to Oxford University, a dream come true. She wanted to live the life of a teenager and find time to make friends have fun, have adventures, including jumping from her dorm roof to the campus belt tower. She defied some of her culture's traditions and her parents' expectations from how she dressed to who she married.

At the same time, she was experiencing PTSD and panic attacks for the first time, recovering from her multiple surgeries and continuing to raise money for the foundation she co-founded with her father, to advocate and raise money for girls' education and places where that is banned. All this took time from her college studies, and she felt like a fraud, a symbol of female education, who was barely passing some of her classes. Another thing I learned from her book and from hearing her speak is that she's very self-aware, introspective and funny.

I spoke with her in front of an audience at W.H.Y.Y, where she was given this year's lifelong learning award. Hello, I was such an honor to have you here tonight. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to talk with you.

It's so nice to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for the honor and good evening everyone. It's always so nice to be in this beautiful warm welcoming city.

So your father, as I mentioned, founded a school, was a school you went to. He was passionate about education and passionate about it for girls. And when the towel bank came and took over your area, they had a deadline for when they were going to close down with schools. It was the 15th of January 2009.

“And you attended school until the last day, even though I think you're only allowed to go up to fourth grade and you were in fifth grade.”

Yes, and we were, you know, we would wear just our home clothes. We could no longer wear our school uniform.

It would give you away. Yeah, we said like the towel bank should never know that girls are daring to go to a school.

We would wear these long hefty like scarves and just, you know, wrap them around our body. So we could hide our school bag like any bag will sort of hide. So there's no proof of us daring to walk to a school. And we said that if they ever ask us what grade we were in, let's say they found out. We'll just tell them we are in fourth grade. They could never prove it. So we said, you know, we're just still like little girls and, but girls were risking their lives to be in a classroom.

“Right. So during that period, I think this is during this period.”

A journalist from the BBC, after a volunteer from your school, to keep a journal that the BBC could draw on or publish, I'm not sure which.

And then your father says to you, "Malala, would you like to volunteer?"

“How did you feel about that? I'm asking you to volunteer. When you knew it was a great risk.”

I mean, it was an anonymous pseudonymous journal. You wrote an under a pseudonym. But how did you feel knowing you were taking on this risk? And this was before you got shot by a Taliban. Yeah, so I was 11 years old and when I heard that so young, yes, yes. How could you even comprehend the risk that you were taking? My honest reaction to a question like this is that, I wish I was a child.

I wish I knew nothing about these things. I wish I didn't have to write a blog. I wish I didn't have to become an activist. But that was the lived reality of girls. At 11 years old, they're telling you that just because you are a girl, you cannot step into a classroom. You cannot have an education. And I know that, you know, when I look back, I'm like, yes, I was a crazy thing that I did. I put my life at risk. But at the time, what scared me more was a life without an education. As a girl, it terrified me. And I think about women's struggle for equality, for justice everywhere around the world.

You know, we're fighting to protect ourselves against violence, against oppressions.

“Women are literally being murdered and killed. You know, that's how extreme it is.”

And I said, you know, education is that pathway that hope that I can have, that I can have a better future. So the best thing I can do is actually speak out and see if there is, you know, some hope that things would change for us. I think it's when you were living in the area where your parents grew up, which is very remote and very mountainous. I think it was then that you were on a school bus when you were shot. Yeah, it was in 2012 that they, you know, attempted to kill me.

And you weren't expecting that, right? You didn't think that you would be a target.

It wasn't that I never pictured it. I had pictured it many times that this could happen.

I had pictured it at school. I had pictured it at a, in my school bus. I had pictured it on the street where I used to walk to school. I knew that the Taliban could do anything and I used to wonder, like, could I save myself, like, you know, how could I make them understand that I'm actually not a threat. I actually want education for myself, for girls, even for their children. When the, you know, when the day arrived, it was the 9th of October 2012. It was a normal school day for me. And, you know, when we, when we were driving back to our home in our school bus,

that's when, like, you know, everything passes in my memory. I don't remember anything. I have different visuals, different flashbacks, but I am, I'm never sure what I really saw and what I am sort of, I am sort of picturing because of what I heard, but my best friends tell me that story because they were on the school bus with me. And my very best friend Mooney by she was sitting on my right and she tells me this story that Tugan men stopped the school bus. And this one guy, he walks to the, to the back of the bus and asks who is Malala.

And I was not covering my face and he looked at me and then he pointed again at my head and pulled the trigger.

“And I asked my friend, I said, like, did I scream? Did I say anything?”

How was I reacting in that moment? And she said, you just held my hand really tight. You were silent, you were looking at that person, but you were not saying anything and you just held my hand really tight. That I could feel the pain for days and then you fell into my lap. So that's, you know, they also went through a lot of trauma because, you know, I was recovering from the Taliban bullet injury. It had caused facial paralysis, hearing loss, and swelling in my head as well.

So I had to, you know, replace the skull piece with the titanium plate. I had to go through a lot of recovery things. And surgery is many surgeries, but my friends actually saw what happened. Your friend Roneba, who was the one sitting next to you on the bus. She later told you she was covered in blood after you got shot.

And she really thought that she must have gotten shot too, because there was so much blood on her. And she was traumatized. She had nightmares all the time.

And I could never compare the two.

Like I was carrying the pain and they were carrying the memories. So I always talked to my friends, you know, I asked her for the same story again and again. And I'm like, tell me what happened that day. And every time I hear it, I'm like, I just, I can't believe we all saw it that day.

We're listening to the interview I recorded with Malala, Yousafzai at an event where she received W.H.Y. Wise lifelong learning award. Her recent memoir is called "Finding My Way." We'll hear more of the interview. After a break, I'm Terry Gross and this is fresh air weekend.

So let's get to the flashback. So one of the things you did in college is you took some hits from a bomb at the encouragement of your friends.

And then you had this really flashback to something you didn't even remember in the first place,

which was getting shot by the Taliban gunman.

“Would it be triggering if I asked you to describe it?”

No, not at all. And I want to share this story because I wish somebody had told me that this is something that could have happened. That post-traumatic stress, this was a thing. And it happened to me seven years after that attack. That's something that I could not fathom. I said, I was okay, this whole time, why is it happening to me now?

So when I tried that long, like times slowed down. And I felt like I was stuck, I couldn't move. And I was reliving the Taliban attack once again. I thought it was all happening. And I couldn't understand if I was alive or not.

And it was a really terrible experience. And I started getting panic attacks after that. And that's when I realized that I actually need help. So I started sharing with my friends as well that I was not feeling okay.

“I was not enjoying the social events or anything.”

And then it still took me a few months. And then a friend of mine suggested that I start seeing a therapist. And that's when I started getting therapy.

I had never received a therapy before.

Well, you said that even in the Pesh to language, there's no word for anxiety. I can't imagine that. So it must have been really terrifying. And also did a challenge your own identity. You don't always thought of yourself as like, I'm really brave.

Everybody tells me I'm brave. I don't, I don't think, I don't remember the experience of being shot. I'm still not afraid. And suddenly you were afraid to go to sleep. You were afraid to dream.

You were afraid of a lot of things. How did I challenge your sense of yourself? I did feel very disappointed with myself that I was no longer living up to the expectation. Of being brave and courageous. But I had to unlearn a lot this whole time that actually true bravery is when you keep fighting for what you believe in even when you are scared.

So it helped me think very differently. Do you still have flashbacks and panic attacks? Yes. And I think, like, I tried to look after myself.

“And it has just helped me understand that if I want to do my work in the best way possible,”

I have to make sure that I look after my mental health and my physical health, I'm raising awareness about therapy as well, that we should get therapy. And especially for women from communities where I come from, like the South Asian community, Muslim community, personal community, encouraging it in those places as well. And in therapy sessions, like, of course, like those things really help you.

But then I also thought, it's also about the physical health. I thought, like, if you are an activist, you're not allowed to get, you know, sleep, you're not allowed to eat well or not allowed to look after yourself because it's just all about work and work. And then I realized I was actually not doing that job well because I was not in the best shape. So when I started looking after my physical health as well, I started going to the gym now.

I do weightlifting. And that's great. Running, yeah. And when it's leg day, my husband and I go together. So leg day is my favorite day.

And he's literally crying, but because, you know, I'm like, we have to lift heavier weights. So he doesn't like it, but I love it. Yeah. So you go to Oxford University. You're still recovering from surgeries. This is still more surgeries to come.

You were schooled at first in your father's school in a fairly remote region of Pakistan.

You didn't get the kind of education that most Oxford students get. And yet you were held to the same standard. And I understand why the leaders of the university would not want to make, like, you a special student with a different standard. And you probably wouldn't have wanted that for yourself either.

However, it seems to me so unfair that you who were, you know, nearly killed, who was still recovering from that psychologically, emotionally, physically.

We're held to the same standard in the same time table.

And you were falling behind. You're used to being, like, really smart. Now it's part of your identity. You were, like, the girl activists standing up for education. And suddenly, you were barely passing your class. Yeah, nearly failing.

What do you think they maybe could have done to help you during that time? Or to better understand what you were going through. It just strikes me as being very, I wish I had spoken to you back then. So we could have written it to the university. At the time, I had a lot of work that I need you to do for Malala Farms education advocacy.

So I remember in just, like, a little bit more to say, you had donated your, yeah, with your Nobel Prize money. Yes. You and your father created a fund to support girl schools. Yes.

So you had to keep vigilant about that in addition to all the other stuff that I mentioned.

“Yeah. So, like, I remember that we can have in college when one day I was in Lebanon”

with Tim Cook where they announced grants to support Malala Farms work, which was very important because with those grants, we could then help girls in Lebanon and Pakistan and Afghanistan and Nigeria. And then, in a few days, I was at Davos. And I had, you know, shared the stage with Justin Choudho and from those conversations,

to help secure, like, you know, more than two billion dollars for girls education.

You know, like, it was a big commitment for financing for girls education. And then a week later, it was like another event where I was, you know, sharing my story and all of that. So to me, it felt like all of these things were important and I thought I could manage it. But when my teacher saw my performance, she was very concerned.

She said, you are behind on your essays. You're not attending the lectures. And you will literally fail if you keep doing it like this. So she wrote a letter to, you know, to everybody in my circle and said, Malala, will not be allowed to travel during college time.

“It's like, you have to be in college, like, just because we don't take your attendance,”

doesn't mean you can travel to Lebanon or all of these places. And I also realized that there was a whole academic support system at college. I was hesitant to consider it because I thought I might be the imposter here. I might be the only one who's getting it. But when I reached out, they told me that students have challenges because of different reasons.

And it's completely okay to ask for help because this college is, is, is, is built to help you learn. So what do they do to her? Like, just help me understand how to better prepare for my essays, how to divide my time, how to do the reading in a way that's more efficient, plan the essay before jumping into the reading. All of these small tips that really helped me.

And then I improved. I improved in my studies. I did not become like an excellent top students right away. I didn't really become that student, but I was doing okay. And I was just happy with doing okay where I was having good time with my friends.

I was socializing and I was also managing my studies as well. I was in the end very happy with that.

“Did you accept the fact that you weren't like in the upper tier of the author's smart academic students?”

Honestly, I wasn't being hard on myself. Even though, like, I wish to, in an ideal world you want all of it. You want to be that unicorn who's just good at everything is getting the top grades and having a social life and getting good sleep in all of that. But in Oxford, they tell you, you can't have it all. You have to really choose.

And I thought, you know, if there's one thing I were to pick in these colleges, that would be to have a social life. I did not have a friends in high school. I had only made one friend and that's because she fell out with her best friend. So I just filled in the gap. Because I was so new to the culture, even though I could communicate in English,

but it wasn't my first language.

I was still speaking the textbook English. I was still familiarizing myself with the phrases and the, and any of these like trended trending words that they use. And I, you know, I sort of felt like I was, I was not cool enough to make friends. I thought my story was very boring and I thought a Nobel Prize can't get you friends.

So yeah, and I also even at school, I ran for the head girl position. Because I was working really hard. I wanted to be part of every club, every society. So when I heard about the school head girl position, I ran for that. And I lost.

And that, like, made me so upset because, you know, like, you want to be embraced and accepted by your college students and, you know, like, by your school friends. It means so much because I, you know, still young. I was still very young even though I received the Nobel Prize before I had even completed my high school.

And, you know, you just, you just want to be in the cool friends group at the same time.

Yeah. You were 15 when you won the Nobel? No. No. 17.

17. Okay. Yeah, a bit, a bit too late. Were you expecting that as a possibility? A bit older than 15.

Were you expecting that as a possibility?

No. Did you know that you were like, among the people being considered? Of course it was in the news.

“But I remember that day when the announcement was supposed to be made.”

And my father said that I should skip my school day because what if they announced? And I said, Dad, like, everybody who thinks that I'm going to win this is crazy. And I said, I am going to go to my school. And I was in my chemistry class. And my school's deputy head teacher walked in and she called me outside.

And she usually calls you when you are in trouble.

So I was praying for myself.

And then she told me that I had won the Nobel Peace Prize. And it was like, the most insane thing I could ever hear from a deaf, from a school teacher. And then I was told that you should go and do a press conference and go home. And I said, like, no, I went back to a physics class.

And I finished my school day. And I said, if you get a Nobel Peace Prize for education, you have to finish your school day. Did that make you cool in school? Because you said you weren't cool.

Just for a day. Seriously, didn't know. So I died down the next day. I was like, give me another award. Grab me next door something, the Oscar's who knows.

“Well, I just want to say, I think you're really an inspiration for the work that you do for the risk that you take.”

But also believing in living a full life. That welcomes joy and love and fun. Being a full human being while participating in your activism. Thank you all for your support. And it's truly an honor to be here and to share the stage with you as well.

And I just want to say one thing to Philly, go birds. Thank you. Thank you. My interview with Malala, use of sigh was recorded on stage at W.H.Y.Y. Where she received W.H.Y.Y's lifelong learning award.

Malala's recent memoir is titled "Finding My Way." Our book critic Marine Cargon recommends three quintessential spring reads, novels that are light, breezy, and funny, with an undercurrent of chilly reality. Sometimes girls just want to have fun, right? I've been in a springtime mood of wanting to dive into a cartoon-colored ball pit of comic novels with spunky heroines.

And I found some good ones. But what I also found is that much like the classic screwball comedies of your escapism in these playful novels, links, arms with edgy, social commentary. Yesterday, an intricately plotted debut novel by Carol Claire Burke has been getting lots of attention and deservedly so. Name Natalie Heller Mills. On camera, Natalie Rebels in activities like "Spending Four Hours" making a loaf of sourdough bread and then adorning it with a nativity scene made out of herbal stick figures from her own garden naturally.

A little of this goes a long way for those of us who share the attitude of the late Joan Rivers.

“Rivers famously quipped, "I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again."”

Amen. So imagine my glee when Natalie, who only plays at being a pioneer woman, wakes up one morning to the realization that she's been transported back to the year 1855. Welcome to the real pioneer life where if you want milk for your morning gruel, you'd better hustle out to the barn and find a cow. If Burke had only stuck to this plot line, yesterday year would be a fun one-note snark at retro lifestyle influencers.

I thought Gary Steingart's brilliant 2024 essay in the Atlantic about his agonizing seven nights aboard the icon of the seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, had ruined me for all other tales of enforced frivolity on the ocean.

“But I was wrong. Emma Straub's latest novel, American Fantasy starts off sharing Steingart's cynicism and ends up affirming the right of women, especially middle-aged women to party without self-consciousness or apology.”

Our main character here is a 50-year-old divorced woman named Annie, who's been persuaded by her younger sister to join her on a four-day themed cruise.

The theme is on board. Namely, agon soft-round the middle-boy band of the 90s named Boy Talk, that both Annie and her sister loved. Almost every other passenger aboard is a woman of a certain age, otherwise diverse in race, politics, ability, income bracket, and even sexual orientation. All were rabid boy-talk fans, the cruise production manager, a gay woman named Sarah, reflects that these were the guys who had launched a million sexual awakinings, and even if they had awaken something other than heterosexuality, they had still been present, like distant guardian angels of puberty.

“Straub tells the story of the cruise through the eyes of Sarah, Annie, and one of the band members, a thoughtful guy named Keith, who like Annie, is at a crossroads.”

This is a novel that makes the radical move of honoring, rather than ridiculing female fandom. Here Straub's description of Annie's epiphany about her own fandom, as she's standing in a packed crowd during a boy-talk performance. The music was a direct vain to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life, all around Annie, women were dancing and singing, and for a second she closed her eyes and thought, "No one else will ever understand this."

Except, of course, everyone standing beside her, who all understood it perfectly.

I've shared the premise of Laurie Frankl's forthcoming novel Enormous Wings with a few friends, based on how instantly they entered the book's title into their cell phones.

“The premise is all you need to know about this wild, but all two timely story about female autonomy or lack thereof. So here goes.”

Frankl's heroine, Pepper Mills, is 77, and a reluctant new resident of the VISTA View Retirement community in Austin, Texas.

Surprisingly, she meets a nice man there and has sex, and then through a medical fluke that Frankl almost makes plausible, Pepper finds herself pregnant. Her doctors expect the pregnancy to end in miscarriage, when it doesn't, Pepper seeks an abortion, but she lives in Texas, and she's now such a media sensation that it's almost impossible for her to leave the state. Complicated, gutsy, and entertaining, Enormous Wings pokes fun at life's unpredictability, and stokes anger at situations that aren't at all funny.

Marine Caragan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed yesterday's American Fantasy and Enormous Wings. Coming up, we hear from actor Oscar Isaac. He stars in season two of the Netflix series Beef, and recently played Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. This is fresh air weekend. Our co-host Tanya Mosley has our next interview. Here's Tanya. My guest today, award-winning actor Oscar Isaac, was still deep inside one of the most consuming roles of his career, playing Victor Frankenstein.

When director Lee Sung-jin came calling for him to star in the second season of his Netflix series Beef. In Beef, Oscar plays Josh, the manager of an upscale Los Angeles Country Club. He's polished and charming, but underneath that smooth exterior, his life is falling apart because he's stealing from the club, and underneath the facade, his marriage is also falling apart.

I would Victor feel being trapped inside of Josh's small life. This is exactly what Oscar needed to step into the character. In this scene from the series, Josh and his wife, Lindsay, played by Carrie Mulligan, our home after spending the day at the Country Club. They get into an argument, which turns into a full blown fight. With both of them saying the worst things a married couple could say to each other. It's intense. It's hard to kill me. Like doing that stuff. I've just gotten really good at protecting you. You get privileged access to Titans in every industry and you love it.

Who are these Titans? We got to be friends with politicians and CEOs. We had dinner with Bond. You think that they're your friends, but they're not your staff. You're an employee. They pay you to be around. Well, one of us has to pay. Maybe if we had a little more income, I wouldn't have to do this job that you find so repulsive. Well, I gave you my entire inheritance and we're still completely underwater. You bring up my mother right now. I will do something. I do not regret a time we spent on her.

Oscar Isaac is a golden globe winner who has moved between indie films and global franchises from Shakespeare to Star Wars. His films and TV work include Inside, Lewand Davis, Dune, Card Counter, scenes from a marriage and most recently Frankenstein. Oscar Isaac is of Guatemalan and Cuban descent.

He spent the first years of his life in Washington, D.C. before moving to Miami. Oscar Isaac, welcome back to fresh air.

Thanks, son. You're very happy to be here. We're going to get to that intense fight in just a second. I said, when we were shooting that, I said, I hope that on my in memoriam clip, it'll just be me screaming, we had dinner with Bono. I know right. But, you know, first I want to talk to you about this thing, this acting coach told you to bring Victor into the room.

“Why was that the key to unlock this character, Josh?”

Well, it's interesting because it was almost accurate. Yeah, elements that are, but the timeframe was actually, I was in the midst of shooting already.

And I was kind of losing my voice a bit. I just felt like my throat was always so tight.

And I was having a hard time. And there's this wonderful acting teacher, Guru Kim Gillingham. And I met with her and I said, I'm having a really hard time. And I don't know, and on the way over, I was actually thinking about Victor and how much fun that was. And then she had the great idea of like, well, let's, let's, you know, bring Victor back and let him talk to Josh.

And so we did this exercise where, you know, the form of hypnosis. And then she was like, now, let Victor come and speak. And he came back and it was just so anger to be stuck in this little tiny man. And so that feeling of being strangled was coming a bit from that.

“And it wasn't about letting go of that because that's an important part of the character.”

But yeah, it was a really interesting exercise to kind of bridge that gap. Because sometimes, yeah, you know, it's you're playing with energy. And the nervous system is, you know, I was eight months or something of working on Frankenstein. And then a tiny break, and then I was right into doing beef. So to kind of have a physiological mindfulness about how to move into the new character was, it was great.

You described Josh as living in a small life. But he manages this world with a lot of old money and privilege. Can you explain that a bit more? Yeah, so Josh Martinez, he works. He is the general manager of Montavista Point, a country club.

Very elite, lots of athletes, as he says in that clip. Titans of every, every industry. And he is the GM and he worked his way up from the barn cart. He's been there since he was 16 years old. And it's taken a lot of work to get where he is, but he's great with people.

And, you know, he's an incredibly hard worker. And his love language is service as well. And, but behind that, it's not a selfless service. I think he's, he wants access.

And there's something in him that feels he'll never be somebody that can become a member.

And this is the closest he can get to have access to this kind of life. Yeah, at the end of the day, he is the help for a lack of a better term.

“That's right, that's what his wife says to him.”

They're not your friends, they're, you're the help. Thinking about this character, Josh and, and be, he doesn't belong there really, but his way of, of giving back his through service.

So he's charming to all of the people who are part of the club.

But at home, this fight he has with his wife. I mean, we heard a little bit of it in the intro. It gets worse. Lindsey, his wife picks up a golf club. You tell her, thank God, we don't have kids stuff like that.

And so I'm thinking about you pulling from your role as Victor Frankenstein. In his case, specifically his cruelty kind of comes from a wound he can't look at directly. Where does Josh's cruelty live? I mean, is it someplace different? Is out of frustration?

“I think with Josh, it's the, yeah, it's the rejection that she's saying.”

It's like the kind of I see through this identity that you created with Victor Frankenstein. He had no doubts.

The whole movie he has very little doubt, which was a very freeing thing to play.

Up until the moment of creation. And then after that, it's kind of all doubts. And that's when he kind of goes in within himself and, and, and, I don't think he's going to be able to do that. But this Josh is very different.

Josh is mostly doubt and mostly reactionary. You know, he's constantly trying to control the situation, which is what a lot of these GMs do as well. And, and he says, like that's, I let people win all the time. That's what I do. And I remember talking to somebody that has the job and he said, you know, I'd go and he wants me to play.

And we get a pro to come on as well and, and we play. And I might be a little win. And he's like, of course, I have to let him win. Like, not by a bunch, but I can't destroy his time there. You know, that's not the point.

So I just found that very interesting. And, you know, and how little of a personal life one has in that situation. You know, it all gets mushed and melded together. Hmm. You did research.

You spoke with someone who really has that job. I did. Yeah, yeah. I did for a couple of people. It's a very strange foreign world to me.

Although I did work at a golf club for a few months when I was 16. But it was, it was more like, it was more like weddings that would happen this small golf club. And I was a bit more like a waiter. But it was, yeah, I heard a lot of the same wedding songs over and over again. And had to get out of there.

But, you know, I was like, you could imagine some, you know, that's about the age that Josh was when he started. And he decided, no, this is my way in. And, you know, I did it in Lake Worth, Florida. This is in Montesito, very different vibe.

“But I think he really sees, like, I've got something.”

And I've got something special and people like me. And I understand people and I understand how to make them feel good. I think, yeah, he sees, he sees a way into this life. Okay, Oscar, I want to get into a Frankenstein for a moment. And you have called, I've heard you a few times call.

Del Toro's Frankenstein, a Mexican mellow drama.

And I have never heard it describe that way.

What made it that? Okay, terrible. He wanted to approach it that way and invited certainly me and all of us to approach it that way, which was, you know, for him it was a very autobiographical telling, at least in the expression of the film.

And, yeah, it was just the way that we would approach every day. There was kind of this maximalist thing that was happening. But that was deeply, deeply felt. I mean, it's like listening to a chorizo, you know. It's like a mariachi music where it's so passionate.

And because it's just like a such a deep, deep expression of both. And expression and celebration of both joy and pain at the same time.

“So I think it was that kind of point of view that was very exciting.”

We have said that we spoke exclusively in Spanish to one another, which was so nice for me. I hadn't had that experience certainly not with the director. I mean, it was really just with my mom and my aunts. So it felt like a real familial thing to do.

And it's my mother tongue. So there was just something that just went deeper. It just went to some other part of my brain that usually is an access to that way. And so I describe it because I've heard that from people before,

Did it unlock or add a dimension?

“I think it was just like a directness and a simplicity.”

Even with me, you know, my vocabular is not great. You know, maybe eighth, ninth grade, maybe, and Spanish. But I would just no matter what the question was, I would force myself to just express it in Spanish to them. And there was something about having to find the simplest way of saying what I wanted to say.

That I don't know. It was a very interesting experiment. And since then, we speak nearly every day.

And yeah, I've gained this incredible family member.

I mean, he's so passionate. I also described him as the Mexican Buddha. He has such wisdom and such generosity and zero potential. But also cares deeply about the work that he does as well. So it's just an incredible human being and a real advocate for other people.

And advocate for other people's work. He doesn't ever trash anyone's work or speak negatively. I just found him to be an incredible example of how to be a person in this world. That'll be a man, how to be an artist. That sounds special to now have this daily friendship with a director.

Is that common for you? I mean, not like this. This has been a real family member of mine now. There's a real closest. And I have definitely become friends with a lot of people I've worked with. You know, it is such an intimate setting and you go to deep places.

And that's one of the things that is really special about this work. You know, we are carnivore, we are. We're a circus people, but like we need to, we hold on to each other because it is such a strange bubble to be in. And it's such an elusive thing that we're searching for that we're trying to find together. And it's often a very humiliating experience.

It's a humbling experience. To be an actor.

“Yeah, to be an actor, I think to be an artist.”

But particularly to be a performance artist, you know, to your own self, your body and your voice. That's the materials that you're working with. Right? That's the Highwire Act I think is watching somebody battle their own ego

and embarrassment and, you know, and some people do it effortlessly. You know, there are people do lots of other wild things to battle that.

And to do that with a character with incredible writing.

Or obviously all of that adds to this kind of astounding feat. At least for me when I watch it and thinking about it. It was great performances. You know, like, how is that happening? I know how hard it can be to allow oneself to kind of get out of the way to let something happen, you know.

Okay, before we wrap, I have to ask you about your music. People who follow your career know that you were a musician and your young life. And you're known for this character that you played a folk musician from inside Lou and Davis. But you were field recently on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that you and your sons have a band. What's it called again?

Please. That okay. That's really a punk rock name. Please featuring Cool Dude. Wait, who's the Cool Dude?

That's my oldest son, Eugene. He kind of like, he's like, he's got his own thing. So he just, you know, we're one of the projects that he works with. But they happen as much lately. It's like, actually, they've got the, you know, they're doing their drumming lesson right now.

They're really into playing drums. I mean, they're so musical. But, you know, what the bands, I got to be honest. It's a little on hiatus for the last couple of months. It's like suddenly, they're just not as into jamming with that.

“Maybe I got too, I think I got too into it.”

You think, yeah, because you know that happens when parents get too serious about it? Yeah, I just killed the vibe. I actually want to play a clip. Two clips actually from that late night performance. You're talking about it.

The first clip is your son singing, followed by a clip of using the song that you guys put together.

Let's listen. [Music] I love that. I love that. And then here's you.

They can have the guitar. [Music] [Music]

I think this is why please broke up because you were on the tonight.

[Music] Okay, now I know, this is where you lost it.

“I think this is why please broke up because you were on the tonight.”

You were on the tonight show. Yeah. No, man, you killed it.

You're not in a good way.

We're an underground punk band. You can't go. It's an night show. Right, I know. Yeah, yeah.

“You know, I mean, I loved seeing that though.”

That had to be really great to, to like have this connection with your sons from the place that you started to find your artistic voice.

Yeah, no, it is. You know, those are all his own lyrics and to find a reason to do that and to play it and playing it for them. I mean, they were laughing. They thought it was, it was so fun. It's a, it's a really fun thing to share with them.

It's something my dad shared with me.

“He played music all the time and would record music and had guitars and things around the house.”

And that was a real connection for he and I as well. We really bonded over that. And so to, so I was like, I want to have instruments readily available at all times. Just in case inspiration strikes and they want to go down and play and that's been a really lovely thing. Are you playing for yourself as well?

Sometimes at times. Yeah, I still do a bit for myself. It's interesting because when I get a little extra low, I'm like, you know what, I haven't played in the well. And I play and that, that feels really good. Oscar Isaac, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you and thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Bill Pleasure. Oscar Isaac stars in season two of the Netflix series Beaf. He spoke with Tonya Mosley. Fresh air weekend is produced by Theresa Madden. Fresh air is executive producer Sam Brigger.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.