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Jason Isaacs
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Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is a British actor born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, who is known for his performances as Death Eater Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, 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.
n Isaacs was born on 6 June 1963, in Liverpool, Lancashire, in England, to Jewish parents, who later emigrated to Israel, spending his earliest childhood years in an "insular" and "closely-knit" Jewish community of Liverpudlians, of which his Eastern European great-grandparents were founder-members.
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Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is a British actor born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, who is known for his performances as Death Eater Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, 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, Lancashire, in England, to Jewish parents, who later emigrated to Israel, spending 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' recent 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 all 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 as-yet 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.
Issacs 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. However, the film is once again scheduled for release in 2009 and currently in-production. Isaacs appeared in one episode of the TV show "Entourage" in the fall of 2008 as Fredrick Line.
Selected work
Film
Some of the information in this table was obtained from
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 Kaye | | | 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
Biographies
Interviews
- [Filmed on the set of Brotherhood; includes Isaacs' demonstration of a magic trick.]*
Other articles
- ["Players: See Past Participants."]*–––.
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