Oscar Isaac shares his mother’s last words and how art pulled him through grief

Oscar Isaac has revealed the emotional words his mother spoke before she died and how theater helped him emerge from grief.

Speaking after a Nov. 14 DOC NYC screening of King Hamlet, the documentary directed by his wife, Elvira Lind, Isaac translated a line he recorded from his mother, Eugenia: “Everything goes back to the ocean. The ocean takes back everything. The only thing it doesn’t take is love. Love never goes out.”

The Frankenstein actor lost his mother in 2017 while preparing to play Hamlet at New York’s Public Theater and expecting his first child.

King Hamlet interweaves that wrenching period of hospital visits, family dinners, rehearsals and Elvira’s pregnancy to show how personal loss and performance collided in Isaac’s life.

"I literally was sobbing, and then the moment that I was able to think about the play a little bit, it got me out of that," he said in the documentary. "And it's like, literally, the play is the only salvation that I could find."