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Oscar Isaac on the Nazareth Boot Camp Experience: ?I don't think I could have done it without that. For instance, the hands? If I didn't believe myself, there was no way anybody else was going to believe it. I have actor hands [so] how do you get first century carpenter hands? I remember the technical adviser came and I shook his hand. ?Those are the hands that I need.? He had these huge, massive, swollen, cut-up hands.

We worked with first century tools exclusively for a month. I was making the staff that I used in the film, the walls of my house. We did masonry work and by the time filming came, the hands were callused and bruised, swollen. ?Okay, now I'm ready for the lines. Now I'm ready for dialogue.? Yeah, it was great.?

Isaac added, ?You felt that you were living in that time. I'd look around and I'd see Keisha and Shohreh [Aghdashloo] milking goats, and I'm carving wood here. You can't help but feel like you're in it.?

The Audience for The Nativity Story: Asked if he thought the film would reach beyond a Sunday School audience, Isaac responded, ?I think so. I think it will. One, because it is this big epic journey with this kind of little intimate love story. It's kind of the story of how these two people that are forced together ? I guess one more than the other ? how they ultimately become a family. I think that in itself is a fantastic story. Also, the fact that it's about humility and it's about love.

That's a great message, particularly even for religious people, that this is the greatest act of humility of all time. That God decides to come to earth to the most ostracized and oppressed of people ? particularly two people who are ostracized by their own community in the little hick town of Bethlehem ? in a cave, I think that's what the message is. It's not the powerful and the rich and the proud that are exalted, but the humble and those that act out of love that God exalts.?