Oscar Isaac – Guatemalan-American Actor

Oscar Isaac Hernandez Estrada is a versatile actor that is able to portray many different ethnicities and nationalities on screen, from Egyptian to European, French to Mexican, Welsh to Israeli, just to mention a few. He is well-known for his lead roles in films like “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Ex Machina,” or “A Most Violent Year”.

Estrada received a Golden Globe Award nomination for “Inside Llewyn Davis”. In 2006, he portrayed the former president of East Timor in “Balibo” and won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Recently, he appeared in the movies “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “X-Men: Apocalypse”. Then in 2015, he performed in the HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero” and won the best actor Golden Globe Award. TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential artists in the world for his work in 2016.

He was born in Guatemala to a Cuban father and a Guatemalan mother. His family moved to the United States when he was just five months old and he grew up in Miami, Florida.

The masculine name Oscar most likely means “deer friend,” which was derived from the Gaelic words os that means “deer” and cara that means “friend”. However, the name might be derived from the Old English name Osgar or its cognate Asgeirr from Old Norse, which might have been brought to Ireland by Vikings. The name Osgar is derived from the Old English elements os that means “god” and gar that means “spear”.