'Frankenstein' star Oscar Isaac reflects on his late mother's final words

Oscar Isaac is opening up about the powerful words his mother shared before she died of cancer in 2017, and how they helped him through his grief.

In King Hamlet, a new documentary directed by his wife, Elvira Lind, the 46-year-old actor revisits the period when he was preparing for Hamlet at the Public Theater while his mother, Eugenia, was in her final days.

Isaac says he wrote down many of her last messages, including a line that stayed with him. “Everything goes back to the ocean. The ocean takes back everything. The only thing it doesn’t take is love.”

The film follows Isaac through mourning, rehearsals, family moments, and the birth of his first child with Lind. It includes private calls about his mother’s health, showing the uncertainty and strain the family endured as she lived longer than doctors predicted.

Eugenia died in February 2017, as Isaac balanced grief, marriage, fatherhood, and major projects like Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

He says working on Hamlet gave him something to hold onto, calling the play “the only salvation” during that time.