Four years after its HBO debut, Scenes From a Marriage remains one of Oscar Isaac’s most quietly powerful performances. In this five-part miniseries that earned an 83% Rotten Tomatoes rating, Isaac and Jessica Chastain explore the unraveling of a contemporary American marriage with a rawness rarely achieved on television. While the series received critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival and earned Isaac a Golden Globe, Emmy, and SAG nomination, it still doesn’t always get the attention it deserves in discussions of his career.
What to Know About Oscar Isaac in ‘Scenes From a Marriage’
Image by Federico Napoli
Hagai Levi’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 Swedish miniseries places Isaac and Chastain in the spotlight almost exclusively. Playing Jonathan Levy, a philosophy professor, Isaac navigates a marriage in decline alongside Chastain’s Mira Phillips, a tech executive. The addition of the couple’s daughter, Ava (Sophia Kopera), adds further complexity, but this is mainly a two-person chamber piece. From the first scenes, it’s apparent that Levi’s goal is not drama propelled by plot, but a deep dive into emotional truth.
Isaac has described the performance as less about playing a character and more about inhabiting situations alongside Chastain. The two actors, who have a long-standing friendship dating back to their time at Juilliard and co-starred in A Most Violent Year, bring an instinctive synchronicity to the roles. “It’s not really two performances, it’s one performance,” Isaac said. “We’re performing the character of a marriage.” The chemistry between Isaac and Chastain, in front of and behind the camera, is strong enough to lift what could have become a stifling, painfully earnest drama into something truly compelling.
The premise of this series is, unsurprisingly, unrelenting in its private intimacy; its claustrophobic drudgery unfolds inside a single house, where we see all the embarrassing details of a marital dispute. For example, Episode 2 was particularly taxing for Isaac. The scenes in which Mira reveals her betrayal and their imminent separation required Isaac to remain emotionally engaged as he reacted to devastating news for multiple days of filming. It only shows off Isaac’s prowess as an actor capable of breaking the scene apart in his own authentic way to convey Jonathan’s chaos, hurt, and restrained fury without veering into broad, false melodrama.
Why Oscar Isaac’s Performance in ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ Resonates
While the show may feel familiar to modern audiences used to marital dramas, Isaac’s work stands out for its precision and emotional risk-taking. Adding footage of the actors preparing to shoot under COVID protocols was another choice by Levi that gave the play an extra element of meta-theatricality, underscoring the rigor behind what seemed to be an improvised performance. Isaac’s willingness to engage in nudity, disclose deep emotional vulnerability, endure the claustrophobic, high-pressure context of the series, and embrace ambiguity heightens the sense of authenticity.
Isaac’s work is particularly captivating because of his onscreen chemistry with Chastain as they often enter a liminal space between actor and character. Moments as mundane as a vehicle together or an uncomfortable silence become extraordinarily loaded: a marriage in a state of constant negotiation and silent tension. Even small, understated gestures—eye contact, a sigh, a lean in—hold weight, and Isaac navigates them all with a subtlety that escapes most viewers outside of awards season.
In the end, Scenes From a Marriage is not about innovative plot development; it is an exercise in how the actors develop and touch on emotional truth. For its viewers, the series is an exercise in watching performance, which Isaac delivers in a near-hypnotic form. Four years on, it remains a key example of his range and dedication, a quietly underrated highlight in a career often discussed in blockbuster terms.
