Oscar Isaac took to Saturday Night Live with musical guest Charli XCX and kicked the night off on the right note with an incredible opening monologue. The star of the upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight had never hosted Saturday Night Live before but took to the show with ease, and he was clearly excited to have fun on the show — his monologue set a delightful tone for his entire episode.
The opening monologue can make or break an episode. Sometimes, the host is a little too nervous, and it is awkward, then every sketch after that has to make up for that awkward introduction. Isaac was at ease and ready to make fun of himself and his upbringing as an actor, and it worked really well to give us a look into who he is and why so many of us love him as a performer.
The monologue starts with Isaac telling the audience his full name. "My name is Oscar Isaac, but my full name is Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada. I said to Hollywood, 'You can pick two of these names.' Guess what they went with? The white ones." Isaac jokes before talking about being half-Guatemalan and half-Cuban, using it to mock how Hollywood sees him. "Or, as casting directors call that 'ethnically ambiguous.' According to them, I can play anything from a pharaoh to Timothée Chalamet's daddy."
But what makes his monologue so wonderful is that Isaac took the time to remind us all to let ourselves be weird. He talked about a movie he wrote, starred in, and directed when he was ten years old called The Avenger (now an NBC licensed movie since Isaac had to sign a release to let the show use the clips in his monologue). The home video shows a ten-year-old Isaac playing both the hero and his own enemy while messing around in his friend's backyard.
This is common (or at least was with my family), but it's fun to see that stars really are just like us and spent time as kids making weird movies with their friends (or in this case with just himself) where he thought he was an action star. Isaac is a huge star because he's so fun and down to earth, and his monologue showed that, even if we got a glimpse of Mr. Ferguson cleaning his pool in the middle of The Avenger. But, as Isaac says, it's important to encourage kids to be weirdos because maybe those weirdos get to host Saturday Night Live.
You can watch Oscar Isaac's opening monologue down below.