OSCAR Isaac likes complicated sorts.

In his new film, The Two Faces Of January, the Guatemala-born actor who once played Macbeth at Juilliard, is a young American abroad who believes he has found a king and queen to follow, only to be forced to think again.

It is a typically deft and morally knotty Patricia Highsmith thriller, the kind of picture that requires skilful footwork from all concerned. Just as well the 34-year-old star of Inside Llewyn Davis and Drive had been practising, because on the weekend we spoke he had to be as on his toes as Gene Kelly.

Isaac must have been asked in every interview for The Two Faces Of January what he was doing in London, but no-one managed to get any further than the standard, "Sorry, can't say more" responses of the superstitious actor. "Just doing some meetings, trying to set up the next thing," was as far as your correspondent got.

Cut to five days later and a photograph of the first read-through by the cast of the new JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars appeared. There was Isaac. Like everyone else involved, he had been sworn to secrecy. Cue collective, Homer Simpson-esque "D'oh!" on the part of the press. JJ Abrams 1, media 0.

Opening in 1962 in Athens with Isaac as a tour guide and Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst as the couple he befriends, the Hossein Amini-directed Two Faces gave Isaac a chance to travel to Greece, Crete and Turkey.

Crete, and the port town of Chania, were particular highlights for the boy brought up in Miami, Florida, where his father was a doctor. "I have never been anywhere as magical as that. My mother came out to visit me there and everything about it I just adored."

Isaac was drawn to Rydal, his character in The Two Faces Of January, because of his flaws. "He is someone who is both predatory and ends up being preyed upon." In movies, he says, it is difficult to find characters who are hard to like.

"In film there is this conditioning that 'Everyone needs to be likeable'. For some reason people don't have that for plays. I don't think anybody leaves Macbeth or Richard III and thinks, 'Oh, I wish he was a little more likeable'."

Isaac has been spending a lot of time in the 1960s lately. Inside Llewyn Davis, his last major film before The Two Faces, is set in 1961, with Isaac playing the titular folk musician bumming around Greenwich Village trying for one last go at fame.

Llewyn was a perfect fit for Isaac, who sings and plays guitar. He also clicked with the famously tight-knit clan of filmmakers and actors led by the directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

"They were some of the most open, warm, people I have ever worked with," he says of the brothers. "We would have constant conversations not only about the character in the film but about the other films they have made, what directing means to them, all sorts of things. It was the most collaborative experience I have ever had."

While often very funny, Inside Llewyn Davis is a modern American tragedy, the tale of a man experiencing the roughest of times personally and professionally. Isaac never had it anywhere near that bad when he was making his way up after Juilliard as a young actor, but he could feel Llewyn's pain to a certain degree.

"I have had weeks and moments where I have felt like nothing I was doing was connecting professionally or personally. And felt very alone, disconnected, alienated, isolated. What is amazing about the Coens is that that is a very universal feeling. I find it hard to believe there are people who have gone through life and never felt that way."

Amini, making his directorial debut with The Two Faces, wrote the screenplay for Drive, in which Isaac starred alongside Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. Isaac played Mulligan's fresh-out-of-jail husband in the Nicolas Winding Refn-directed thriller. Having also worked with Ridley Scott on Robin Hood and Steven Soderbergh on Che: Part One, Isaac is acquiring quite the collection of directors on his cv. What kind of director gets the best out of him?

"Someone who is open to trying things but has a real sense of the entire story and how certain things affect it. Someone who is just on top of the details and is able to lead when we are shooting. That is when I can do what I do, that is the only control I have, that small window when we are actually shooting the thing."

One name stands out on the list, a certain Madonna. In W.E., the pop star's drama about Wallis Simpson, Isaac played a Russian security guard who becomes involved with a woman obsessed by the American who rattled the British monarchy. While the reviews in general turned out to be so toxic they are probably buried in cement somewhere, Isaac's performance won praise.

"I didn't hesitate," he says on being offered the part in a Madonna film. "When I met her I found her very candid and open about how emotionally invested she was in the story itself. There was every reason for me to be involved.

"There was definitely an extra heap of criticism waiting to be unleashed just because of the nature of who she is, and because she is a female director. It may be strange to say but I was even very proud of her, watching her put the film together. It was not an easy film, two different stories, two different timelines."

He still plays music whenever he can, and when we speak he had recently appeared at Carnegie Hall, New York. The gig was a benefit for Sting's Rainforest Fund and Isaac performed a "stripped down, folky" version of Rod Stewart's Young Turks.

Music and acting have coincided happily for him, he says, because they are both all about tones, finding the right one and avoiding what jars. Being in just the right groove is also a reason he prefers to live in New York rather than Los Angeles.

"Los Angeles is quite saturated, it is a lot about the movie business. For me it does not quite work. Being in New York there is a little more opportunity to be involved with things that are not just focused on movies."

Isaac has three more films out this year - Mojave, a thriller with Mark Wahlberg; A Most Violent Year, a New York-set crime drama directed by JC "Margin Call" Chandor; and Ex Machina, a science fiction thriller helmed by Alex Garland of The Beach fame. Then there is the not so small matter of Star Wars: Episode VII to shoot.

There is one thing he still hankers after, though: another chance to play the doomed King of Scotland. He was working on a Macbeth project, only to be beaten to the chase by the Michael Fassbender movie and James McAvoy on the stage.

"It was one of my favourite things and I am still determined to do a production of it again. Maybe a bit down the road I'll get another crack at it."

The Two Faces Of January opens tomorrow