Oscar Isaac, speaking recently with Sirius XM, discussed his director J.J. Abrams, specifically his directing style and how he gave his actors plenty of latitude and control over their characters while filming.
“A lot more scenes were shot in oners… What that meant was he was giving up a bit of control, because when you do it that way you can very much control peoples’ performances. But when you do it in these long takes, people are talking over each other and you can’t cut around stuff, so I think it meant that he trusted the performers, he trusted that we understood who the characters were, and he let those dynamics play out in real-time with each other, and I think that was a lot of fun.”