Up until the end of last year, Oscar Isaac was an actor who fell pretty consistently into the "that guy" category -Â you'd almost certainly seen him be good in something, and you almost certainly wouldn't be able to identify him by name.

That changed dramatically after his lead turn in the Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, and since then he's been cast in a slew of notable projects, none more notable than JJ Abrams's Star Wars: Episode VII.

When Digital Spy sat down with Isaac earlier this week, we spoke to him about his five defining performances to date.

Robin Hood (2010)

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"I already loved Ridley [Scott], and the fact that he would take the chance and cast me as the King of England was amazing. For me, as an actor coming out of Miami, with Latin roots, so many doors are constantly closed for you, people put you in a category. So Ridley taking that shot, saying 'No, you're not gonna play the gangster, you're gonna play the king', it was a huge confidence booster for me. It was one of my first big shots at something where it was like, you got the part because you were the best actor for it, not because your ethnicity happens to line up with what we need."

Drive (2011)

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"In the original script, Standard was basically this Mexican thug who would give beer to his son. The second he shows up, you were like 'Ugh, kill this guy, let's see the white people get together'. So I told Nic Refn, 'I love your movies, I think Hossein is a great writer, but I'm not gonna play that role, it's exactly what I'm trying to avoid'. So he said 'well, if it could be whatever you wanted, what would it be?'

"So we started to develop the character, and Hossein Amini the screenwriter got on the phone, and he loved the ideas. Suddenly, instead of some thug who just wants to do another score as soon as he got out of jail, he's someone who is trying to reform himself. He did one stupid thing that got him in prison, which happens very often, people just make one s**tty mistake and then they're in jail.

"The conflict there just becomes much more interesting, I think. When Standard dies, it's a shock, whereas before you'd not only be expecting it but hoping for it."

The Bourne Legacy (2012)



"I had met with Tony [Gilroy] for the lead role, Aaron Cross, and he was very enthusiastic and like 'yeah, we're gonna make this with you'. It turned out that I needed to test for it, and we did a 12-hour screen test, with makeup and hair and different locations, using a film camera, it was the works. And ultimately he gave me a call a month later and just said 'The studio can't do it'.

"This was pre-Llewyn, obviously, and it was just too huge of a commodity to put on the back of someone that's never even been a lead in any film at all. So it was understandable, it made sense to go with Jeremy [Renner], who I think is such a phenomenal actor, and he was very gracious about me coming in to play this other role.

"The truth is, I think the right guy got the job because Jeremy actually is a badass â€“ he's a ski instructor, he does all that s**t, and I didn't even graduate high school because I failed PE! "

Inside Llewyn Davis

"The irony is that if I had gotten the lead role in Bourne, I wouldn't have been available to do Inside Llewyn Davis. And I feel like I was born to play that role, so it's funny how things work out. You can fail at something, but that bad luck turns into great fortune.

"The songs [from Llewyn Davis] that I like to perform aren't necessarily the ones that I like to listen back to the most. For listening to, or even just playing by myself, 'The Shoals of Herring' is my favourite. I really love that song, and the context of it within the movie, and initially that song and 'Queen Jane' were the ones that I felt the least connected to â€“ even the style of them was a bit foreign for me. But now, listening back to 'Shoals' in particular, I find that really moving. To perform, 'Dink's Song' is the most fun."

The Two Faces of January

"Working with Hoss on Drive was really great experience because we had to completely remake the character together, and he was so open to it all, and such a gentleman. And when he showed me this script, the characters were so dark and complicated and you never knew what their motivations were, and that's what I thrive on."

The Two Faces of January is out now. Inside Llewyn Davis is released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday, May 26.

Watch Digital Spy interview Oscar Isaac about Inside Llewyn Davis below:

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