Jason Isaacs (born 6 June
1963) is an English actor born in Liverpool
, who is known for his performances as villain
Lucius Malfoy in the
Harry Potter
films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot, and as
lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the internationally-broadcast
American television
series Brotherhood. Though most of his
work has been in film and television, it also includes stage
performances; most notably, as the ambivalent gay lawyer Louis
Ironson in Declan Donnellan's 1992
and 1993 Royal
National Theatre
London premières of Parts One (Millennium
Approaches) and Two (Perestroika) of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in
America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and as Ben,
one of two hitmen, playing opposite Lee Evans as Gus, in Harry Burton's
2007 critically-acclaimed 50th-anniversary revival of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's 1957 two-hander The
Dumb Waiter at Trafalgar Studios
.
Personal background and education
Jason
Isaacs was born on 6 June 1963, in Liverpool, England, to Jewish parents who
later emigrated to Israel
.
He spent
his earliest childhood years in an "insular" and "closely-knit"
Jewish community of Liverpudlians
, of which his Eastern
European great-grandparents were founder-members. The
third of four sons, Isaacs attended a Jewish school and a
cheder twice a week as a young
adult.
When he was 11, he moved with his family to
Northwest London
, attending
the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys'
School
, in Elstree
, Hertsmere
, Hertfordshire
(Herts
), where he
was in the same year as film reviewer
Mark Kermode. He describes his
childhood as "preparation" for portraying the "unattractive",
villainous characters whom he has most often
played.
National Front
members frequently harassed Isaacs and his friends throughout the
1960s and 1970s.
Following
his more traditionally-inclined brothers, who became a doctor, a
lawyer, and an accountant, Isaacs studied law at Bristol
University
(1982–1985), but he became more actively involved
in the drama society, eventually performing in over 30 plays and
performing each summer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, first with
Bristol University and then, twice, with the National Student Drama
Company. After graduating from Bristol he went immediately
to train at London's
Central School of Speech and
Drama (1985–1988).
He and his
partner,
BBC documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt, whom he began
dating at the Central School, have lived together since 1988 and
have two daughters: Lily (born 23 March 2002) and Ruby (26 August
2005). Although unmarried, he refers to Hewitt as his "wife".
Despite Isaacs' screen celebrity as
Lucius Malfoy, he maintains a
relatively modest, "calm, sedate and suburban" life, which he
prefers to the "hideously compromised lives" of the more rich and
famous: "I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of
money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene
amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives.
Really. I mean hideously compromised lives...." Described as an
"invisible star" who can still travel by the
London Underground to film premières
unrecognised, he has observed: "They just think, who's that t*** in
black tie? As soon as I get on the red carpet they start screaming
and screaming. ... It's laughable because when it's all over I go
home on the Tube as well." "I can go anywhere. No one knows who I
am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the
streets."
As a
non-religious Jew, Isaacs has
semi-jokingly called himself a "Jewish man who does almost nothing
Jewish in his life".
Career
After completing his training as an actor, Isaacs almost
immediately began appearing on the stage and on television; his
film debut was in a minor role as a doctor in
Mel Smith's
The Tall
Guy (1989). He was initially known as a TV actor in the
UK, with starring roles in the
ITV drama
Capital City (1989) and
the
BBC drama
Civvies (1992) and guest
roles in
series such as
Taggart and
Inspector Morse in 1992. He
also played Michael Ryan in
ITV1's adaptation
of
Martina Cole's novel
Dangerous
Lady, directed by Jack Woods and produced by
Lavinia Warner, in 1995.
On stage
he portrayed the "emotionally waffling" gay Jewish lawyer Louis
Ironson in Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in
America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, at the
Royal National
Theatre, in its London première, performing the role in
both parts, Part One: Millennium Approaches, in 1992, and
Part Two: Perestroika, in 1993. When auditioning
for that role, he told the producers, "Look, I play all these tough
guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a
cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on
stage?"
His first
Hollywood role
was alongside
Laurence Fishburne
in the film
Event
Horizon in 1997, in which he played a crew member
ultimately killed by the protagonist-turned-antagonist acted by
Sam Neill. Subsequently, he appeared in
the
Bruce Willis blockbuster
Armageddon (1998).
Initially called upon to take a fairly substantial role, Isaacs was
eventually cast in a much smaller capacity as a planet-saving
scientist so that he could accommodate his commitment to
Divorcing Jack
(1998), a comedy thriller he was making with future fellow
Harry Potter cast member
David Thewlis.
After portraying a priest opposite
Julianne Moore and
Ralph Fiennes in
Neil
Jordan's acclaimed adaptation of
Graham Greene's
The End of the Affair
(1999), Isaacs played the "memorable" villain, Colonel William
Tavington, in
Roland Emmerich's
Revolutionary War
fictional film epic
The
Patriot (2000). Starring opposite
Mel Gibson as the film's hero, and
Heath Ledger as Gibson's screen son, Isaacs
portrays a sadistic British army officer who kills Ledger's
character, among many other soldiers. Although his work in the film
earned him comparisons to
Ralph
Fiennes' portrayal of
Nazi Amon Göth in
Schindler's List (1993) and mention of
a Best Supporting Actor
Oscar
nomination, reaching beyond being typecast as an historical
villain, Isaacs chose to play a
drag
queen in his next project,
Sweet November (2001), a
romantic comedy-drama starring
Charlize
Theron and
Keanu Reeves.
Isaacs has appeared in many other films, most notably as
Lucius Malfoy in the
Harry Potter series of films
(2002–present). Regarding the Harry Potter books by
J. K. Rowling, Isaacs has said: "I went off and read
the books after the audition and I read the first four books in one
sitting – you know – didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with
them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood
why my friends, who I'd thought were slightly backward, had been so
addicted to these children's books. They're like
crack." In "The Naked and the Dead", an
article published in the
San
Francisco Chronicle, on 26 November 2006, Neva Chonin
names the character Lucius Malfoy one of the 12 "Sexiest Men Who
Were Never Alive" and Isaacs one of the 13 "Sexiest Men Who Are
Real and Alive".
Prior to the making of the film, when asked whether or not he would
be in
Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Isaacs replied, "I
hope so - you'll have to ask David (producer
David Heyman). I can't bear the idea that
somebody else would get to wear my
Paris
Hilton wig, but you never know." Isaac also talked to
J. K. Rowling on the inclusion of Lucius Malfoy in
the then unpublished
Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows, so that he would have a part in the
seventh and final film: "The character does not appear in the sixth
book,
Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; but ... [Isaacs joked], 'I
fell to my knees and begged ... It didn't do any good. I'm sure she
doesn't need plot ideas from me. But I made my point. We'll see.
Like everybody else, I'm holding my breath to July to see what's in
there. I just want to bust out of prison, that's all. I don't want
to stay in
Azkaban
most of my life.' " However, on 12 September 2008,
AceShowBiz.com revealed that Isaacs is indeed reprising his role of
Lucius Malfoy as a
cameo appearance
in
Harry Potter and
the Half-Blood Prince (
2009),
where he is seen in a moving
portrait.
Afterwards, Isaacs will be reprising the role again in both parts
of
David Yates's film adaptations of
Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows (expected release, 2010 and
2011).
He has also appeared in
Dragonheart (1996),
Event Horizon (1997) ,
Black Hawk Down
(2001),
Jackie Chan's
The Tuxedo (2002), and as
George
Darling and
Captain Hook in
P. J.
Hogan's adaptation of
Peter Pan (2003), and as the
voice of Admiral Zhao in the animated
Nickelodeon series
Avatar: The Last Airbender
(2005).
Isaacs played the leading role of Sir Mark Brydon, the British
Ambassador to the United States in the
BBC
Four miniseries The State Within (2006), for which he
was nominated for the
Best Performance by an Actor
in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television for
the
65th Golden Globe
Awards. On British television, he also portrayed actor
Harry H. Corbett in
The Curse of Steptoe, part of "a
season of new
one-off dramas for
BBC Four revealing the stories behind some
of Britain's best loved television entertainers, and their
achievements," first broadcast in March 2008. On American
television, Isaacs appeared in three episodes of
The West Wing in 2004, prior
to developing his most notable
TV
serial role, as Michael Caffee in
Brotherhood
(2006–present).
Between 2
February and 24 March 2007, Isaacs played Ben, opposite Lee Evans (Gus), in the
critically-acclaimed 50th-anniversary production of Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, at Trafalgar
Studios, in London, his first
theatre performance since appearing in The Force of Change
(2000). He posed for photographs after his performance on 3
March 2007.
Isaacs
plays Major Briggs, an American military officer, opposite Matt Damon and Greg
Kinnear, in the upcoming film of Paul Greengrass's thriller Green Zone (2009), a fictionalised
drama set in Iraq after the defeat of Saddam Hussein based on the book Imperial Life in the Emerald
City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone (2006), by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, for which
production began in Morocco
, in January
2008.
In 2007 he was cast in
Jan de Bont's
then-still-upcoming film
Stopping Power, to play its star
John Cusack's "nemesis", but, on 31
August 2007,
Variety
reported that the film, also planned for release in 2009, had been
canceled after a financial backer pulled out. Isaacs appeared in
one episode of the TV show "
Entourage" in the fall of 2008 as
Fredrick Line. In 2009, he was nominated at the
British Academy Television
Awards for Best Actor for his role as
Harry H. Corbett in
The Curse of Steptoe.
On the evening of 2 May 2009, Isaacs performed the role of Ben
again, opposite his
Brotherhood co-star (and
Tony Award winner)
Brian F. O'Byrne (as Gus), in a "rehearsed reading"
of
The Dumb Waiter. Their reading capped off the
Harold Pinter Memorial Celebration being
curated by
Harry Burton (who
had directed him and Evans at Trafalgar Studios). This Tribute to
Harold Pinter co-sponsored by the Martin E.
Segal Theatre Center
(MESTC), of The
Graduate Center
of The City
University of New York (CUNY), was part of the Fifth Annual
PEN World Voices Festival of
International Literature, held in New York City
, from 27 April to 3 May 2009.
Selected work
Film
Television
Year(s)
of appearance |
Programme or
series |
Role |
Awards and nominations |
| 1989 |
A Quiet Conspiracy |
|
|
| 1989 |
This Is David Lander |
French Doctor |
|
1989
(2 seasons) |
Capital City |
Chas Ewell |
|
| 1989 |
Boon |
Mike Puckett |
|
| 1990 |
TECX |
Edward Latham |
|
| 1991 |
Ashenden |
Andrew Lehman |
|
| 1991 |
Eye Contact |
Michael |
|
| 1992 |
Civvies |
Frank Dillon |
|
1992
(1 episode) |
Inspector Morse (1987 –
2000)
"Cherubim and Seraphim"
|
Dr. Desmond Collier |
|
1992
(1 episode) |
Taggart (1983–present)
"Double Exposure"
|
Barr |
|
1993
(1 episode) |
Highlander: The
Series (1992 – 1998)
"The Lady and the Tiger"
|
Immortal Zachary Blaine |
|
| 1995 |
A Relative Stranger |
Peter Fairman |
|
| 1995 |
Dangerous Lady |
Michael Ryan |
|
1995
(TV movie) |
Loved Up |
Des |
|
1996
(TV movie) |
Guardians |
Jim Reid |
|
1996
(TV movie) |
Burn Your Phone |
The Killer |
|
1997
(TV movie) |
The Fix |
Tony Kay |
|
| 1998 |
The Last Don II |
Father Luca Tonarini |
|
2004
(3 episodes) |
The West Wing (1999 –
2006)
"Gaza"
"Memorial Day"
"N.S.F.
Thurmont"
|
Colin Ayres |
|
| 2006 |
Scars |
Chris |
|
| 2006 |
The State Within |
Sir Mark Brydon, British Ambassador to the USA |
|
| 2006–present |
Brotherhood |
Michael Caffee |
|
| 2008 |
The Curse of
Steptoe |
Harry H. Corbett |
|
2008
(one episode) |
Entourage
"#5.7 Gotta Look Up to Get Down"
|
Fredrick Line |
Some of the information in this table was obtained
from
Theatre
Animated television series and video games
Some of the information in this table was obtained
from
Notes
- [Includes unsourced "Personal Quotes".]
- [Includes excerpts from several reviews, including some cited
below and in The Dumb Waiter#Recent
productions.]
- Rpt. from Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, 14 July
2000.
- Jewish World / Voldemort's sidekick turns Jewish
psychiatrist in film on Nazi era. Haaretz. Published
January 21, 2009.
- .
- , retrieved on 8 February 2009.
- Cf.
References
Biographies
- . Retrieved on 23 June 2008. [Includes unsourced "Personal
Quotes".]
Interviews
Other articles
- ["Players: See Past Participants."]
- –––.
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