Oscar Isaac covers the April issue of Details. Oscar has been a major rising star for several years now, but I don’t recall seeing him on a major magazine cover before now. He looks hot, right? SO HOT. He’s promoting his new film, Ex Machina, where he doesn’t really look so hot. Shaved head and a big, bushy beard? Eh. Don’t get me wrong, I would still hit it. But he looks so much better with his hair grown out. Forget Patrick Dempsey and Bradley Cooper – Oscar has the man-locks that I lust for. Here’s the new trailer for Ex Machina, also starring Domhnall Gleeson (another star on the rise) and Alicia Vikander (this is possibly one of the films she expects to go to the Oscars).

It looks good, right? As for the Details interview, you can read the full piece here. Since I really didn’t know much about Oscar Isaac’s life, I found it interesting. He came to America (from Guatemala) when he was just a baby. He experienced several natural disasters as a child. He used to a hellraiser. He’s obsessed with Al Pacino. Some highlights:

Signing on to big franchises: “In order to be a leading actor everyone has to be an action star, to a certain extent.”

Being compared to the great actors: “The fact that I would even be mentioned in the same breath as Pacino, and particularly his performances in The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon, is insane. I take it all with a grain of salt. People talk a lot of sh-t.”

He once fronted a ska band, the Blinking Underdogs & performed on the Warped Tour: “I wasn’t totally straight-edge, ’cause I ate meat. But no drugs, no alcohol, no sex—all that stuff.” He stood apart from his bandmates, some of whom, he says, were later lost to drug overdoses. “In a way, it became more of a badge of individuality. I was the guy that didn’t do that.” Until, in due time, he did. “After about 18, things started shedding pretty quickly. Yeah, all of that’s been shed.”

Getting cast in Star Wars: “My uncle was a huge fan. He had cards, toys—he still has a huge gallery where he has all his figures. He almost fainted when I told him that I was cast.” When filming started, Isaac says, his uncle “made shirts that said ESTAR GUARS, EPISODE VII. I gave them to everybody and told J.J. Abrams, who was like, ‘Does he wanna be in the movie?’ He’s an extra in a scene with me. How amazing is that?”

His friend Jessica Chastain introduced him to Al Pacino: “He was so gracious when he saw me. He was like, ‘People talk to me about you.’ That was amazing. We sat and I badgered him about acting. He loved it. And we just talked about it for, like, an hour, and everybody else disappeared, except Jessica, of course.”

He’s just been doing a Pacino impression this whole time: “The secret is I’ve just been doing a Pacino impression the whole time. I don’t know what everyone’s freakin’ out about. That’s all I’m doing—a Pacino impression.”

[From Details]

I didn’t realize that Chastain is probably his closest friend in the business, and that they were at Julliard together. He talks a lot about their friendship and it feels genuinely like it is just a friendship, like they’ve never slept together or dated. He actually makes some allusions to the idea that he’s sort of a womanizer, or he was when he was younger. Which I could see. Look at that face!! He knows he’s hot and those puppy-dog eyes have gotten a lot of girls over time.

Photos courtesy of Mark Seliger/Details.