Yes, Moon Knight has a shirtless scene. No, it's not to show off Oscar Isaac's hot body

When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there's always a time for its male superheroes to flex. And we mean flex — think sculpted bods and rippling muscles on display.

Don't believe us? Well, there's even a fun video where Marvel stars were put to the test to see if they can identify their co-stars' abs.

Strangely, the upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight seems to have broken that tradition. In one scene that comes pretty early on in the series, lead character Steven Grant/Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) is shown topless but viewers do not get a clear view of his bod.

Curious, we asked Oscar during a recent interview whether there was a conversation about it and if Marvel Studios was trying to avoid objectifying its male leads.

The 43-year-old replied: "It actually wasn't a conversation. And yeah, the one scene I think you're talking about... It's funny because you're seeing his physique, but also, without trying to give away too much, he's drunk and it's a mess. And so you're kind of also seeing him vulnerable.

"I know for me, we talked about that scene more as an homage to Apocalypse Now, where it's about his state of mind, as opposed to, you know, now here's his hot body."

Moon Knight follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder (DID) and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector.

Incidentally, Marc is the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu and is able to tap on the latter's powers to transform into Moon Knight.

Together with Marc's wife Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy), they are on a mission to stop Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) while navigating their complex identities.

'Unfortunate that it's taboo to talk about mental health'

Moon Knight is the first Marvel production that features a character dealing with a mental health issue. It also marks one of the few times that mental health is being explored in Hollywood. A 2019 study revealed that fewer than 2 per cent of all film characters and roughly 7 per cent of TV characters experience mental health conditions onscreen.

When asked how comfortable he felt in dealing with a real condition like DID for entertainment purposes, Oscar explained that while he wants to make things that people want to see, he still considers himself an "old-school" actor who employs the Stanislavski method.

He shared: "There's a little bit more of lofty ideals, as pretentious as that might sound, which is to help people with the problem of living by acting out things that are difficult to talk about.

"And so for me, this whole story is about the mental health aspect of it, and DID and what it feels like to create different psychological constructs in order to survive trauma and survive abuse."

In response to a separate question about what mental health means to him, Oscar admitted that he knows of friends and family members who have dealt with mental health issues.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Krla_UxRg&ab_channel=MarvelEntertainment[/embed]

He said: "Once you find out that you have dissociative identity disorder, it doesn't go away. But you find a way to integrate those things, so that everyone's working together. And so that was a really important part of the story.

"I've had friends, family members that have dealt with it. And I don't know anyone who doesn't. It's unfortunate that it's still a bit taboo to talk about, or people don't want to admit it. But it's just like having high blood pressure or having a problem with any other organ. Sometimes, your brain is not working, for whatever reasons, in the ways that you want it to and there shouldn't be any shame about that."

Moon Knight premieres on Disney+ on March 30.

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bryanlim@asiaone.com