Jason Isaacs Might Say Too Much

It’s 10:00 p.m. in London, but Jason Isaacs is in no hurry to turn in. “I’m horribly jet-lagged,” he says. “I’ve been back and forth to America about 20 times in the last few weeks, and I haven’t ever really settled back into English time. Everyone else in the house is asleep, so take as long as you want.” Two hours later the actor is performing delightful card tricks for me. Thanks to his decades on British TV, Isaacs is a household name in the U.K., where he has at least two dedicated fan clubs of panting middle-aged ladies who show up to his every public appearance. Stateside, he has not been nearly as famous, unless you happen to be a dedicated Harry Potter fan; he played the villain Lucius Malfoy — “the blond with the wand,” Isaacs calls him — in six of the films. Netflix’s beloved but short-lived sci-fi series The OA, in which he played mad scientist Dr. Hunter Aloysius Percy, later earned him new fans on streaming. But at 62, he seems to have landed his big American-TV breakout role as the filicidal, suicidal, pistol- and lorazepam-filching Durham, North Carolina, big shot Timothy Ratliff on the third season of The White Lotus. Art-before-commerce career choices may have prevented him from being among England’s wealthiest acting exports, but Isaacs is one of the most prolific. He has been hiding in plain sight for the past 30 years, playing second fiddle in scenes opposite the likes of Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage, and many, many “fucking awful” people in Hollywood he’s happy to dish about but too canny to name.

As soon as I saw Tim Ratliff, I immediately thought, I know this southern, Protestant rich-guy type, and he’s nailed it. I was quite surprised to learn that you are Jewish.
Tim Ratliff’s not Jewish, I’ll tell you that.

You’ve talked about abandoning your Liverpool accent when you moved to London at age 11 and then trying to sound even more posh at the University of Bristol, where you initially studied law. You called it code-switching. Was this a case of that?
It’s code-switching, but also I’m a spy. I go into worlds all the time for character research. I’ve been around billionaires and homeless people. I’ve shadowed cops, criminals, priests, and plastic surgeons.

Have you observed guys like Tim Ratliff in their natural habitat?
Oh God. Yes. I played golf with them. Also, when I left university in 1985, Reagan and Thatcher were deregulating the finance world, meaning it was no longer a closed shop of families passing it on, and it exploded in England. If you could spell your own name, you were given two phones, a pager, an Armani suit, and a Porsche. Although I went to drama school, I remember hanging out with lots of those people, and I’m still vaguely connected with ones who made big money. Some of them lost it all up their nose, and some of them have retired and own half of a county somewhere. Tim wasn’t a stranger to me at all.

You put yourself on tape for The White Lotus, which surprised me.
I think everybody did, apart from Parker Posey. That was a fucking nightmare. Dave Bernad, who is Mike White’s partner in crime, told me, “You should know you’re the only person going on tape for this role.” Which I think he thought helped me, but it just made me utterly shit myself. It did make me think I was the first person it was offered to. That wasn’t true. I know one of the other people it was offered to, so I’m thrilled that he turned it down. And then I had to go into an office and audition like I did when I was 25. I found myself stumbling and bumbling and thinking I’d blown it, exactly as I did back then.

You’ve talked a lot about the great time you had on set with your White Lotus children, but I’ve heard less about your show wife, Parker Posey. What was it like working with her?
She’s Parker Posey. She’s everything you think she would be.

What does that mean?
She was playing someone out of her head, so she was given license to be bonkers. And then I’m playing someone out of my head. So I didn’t really look at her or talk to her or listen to her because I’m so much in my own tunnel. So I can’t really tell you what it’s like to interact with her too much.

You did a ton of American media for The White Lotus. I watched your appearance on CBS Mornings, not long after you did a much-discussed scene in which your bathrobe fell open. Tony Dokoupil was kind of pushing you to talk about whether you’d worn a prosthetic penis. Were you annoyed?
Other people thought I was bothered by it. I thought that was funny. People can ask me whatever the hell they like. I trained as a lawyer. I like a bit of cut-and-thrust.

You did seem a little bothered.
Everybody was very sympathetic that day and I was slightly bemused by it. Theo James, who’s a wonderful actor and was in season two, was only ever asked about wearing a prosthetic penis. And I’d thought, well, I’m not going to let that happen to me. Boy, did I fuck up and get that wrong.

How so?
Because I thought, Well, I’m going to say I’m not talking about it. And then when people asked again, I’d go, “So would you really like to see my penis? Would you like to see it on air or do you want to go to the dressing room? As a serious journalist, this is the thing you want to talk about?” I thought that would kill it and instead it just made that be the only thing people asked me about for a week until the brothers’ handjob came along and luckily displaced me.

Most actors would kill to be cast on White Lotus, but I also read that every actor earned $40,000 an episode, which is quite low.
I didn’t know that was public knowledge. That’s absolutely true. Generally actors don’t talk about pay in public because it’s ridiculously disproportionate to what we do — putting on makeup and funny voices — and just upsets the public. But compared to what people normally get paid for big television shows, that’s a very low price. But the fact is, we would have paid to be in it. We probably would have given a body part.

But you have a very long résumé. Do you have any complicated feelings about earning the same as less-experienced actors like Patrick Schwarzenegger?
Do I mind that I wasn’t paid more than other people? I never work for money. I mean, I’ve done all right. People will think I have huge stockpiles of money but sadly, what I’ve done rather immaturely is expand my outgoings to match my incomings and pretty much spent everything I’ve earned over the years.

Your first movie job was a tiny role in the 1989 Jeff Goldblum comedy The Tall Guy. You played a doctor in a fantasy sequence.
I went there first thing in the morning, and to my horror, they put a surgeon’s mask and hat on me so you couldn’t see my face at all. Jeff Goldblum, who was in his underpants, was lying out of shot. They say “action,” and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” Even though he is not in the frame, he stands on a chair and starts to recite love poetry. Keats, I think. And I’m guessing it’s some kind of method to get him into character. And I think, This is an insane environment; if work is going to be like this from now on, I don’t know if I can hack it. I sat next to Jeff at Roland Emmerich’s wedding many years later and went, “Jeff, you won’t remember me,” and told him the story, and he went, “Pass the bread, please.” That’s one of my very impactful celebrity encounters.

You did the first British production of Angels in America opposite Daniel Craig in 1992 at the National Theatre. He got the James Bond role a decade later. When you see a peer get an opportunity that is going to turn them into a household name, put their kids through school, and buy them vacation homes—
And ten generations of their family will not be worrying about economic downturns. Yes.

What is the emotion?
Someone once told me that jealousy is fine, and envy is bad. Jealousy is, “Oh, I’d like that.” Envy is when you don’t want someone else to have it. If I feel the green shoots of that, I immediately redirect to something else. If I wasn’t working ever, it might be a lot worse for me. As an actor it’s really easy to get out of bed and think, Fuck, why aren’t I that guy on the side of the bus? Or suddenly being flown in a private plane to Formula One or whatever. I know people who have those things and it’s a pretty shitty life. I remember we were in a motel somewhere while filming The Patriot, and I phoned Mel Gibson in his room and said, “Dude, come down. We’re doing karaoke in the bar. It’s just the cast and crew, there’s no one else here.” He goes, “No, I’ll ruin it for everybody.” And I went, “Come out to the bar, it’ll be fine.” He came downstairs, and within five minutes the bar man must have phoned someone and the place was full. I became his de facto bodyguard. Women were pawing at him and men were drunkenly putting their arms around his neck. And that’s what it’s like. Maybe the financial security would be great. But the rest of it’s awful.

Playing the evil redcoat William Tavington in Emmerich’s The Patriot in 2000 was considered your breakout role. I’ve gotten the sense that you have complicated feelings about the movie’s star, Mel Gibson. Given what he’s said about Jews, it surprises me that you seem to like him.
He was very charming personally, and he’s intelligent and self-deprecating. He’s said and done some things that are unconscionable and unforgivable. I was invited by my friend to some charity cricket event for Australians in film. And he said, “If you come, Mel will.” And I said, “I don’t want to see Mel.” I hadn’t seen him since that terrible antisemitic outburst when he got stopped by the police. And my friend said, “Come on, mate. We’ll get loads of money for charity.” So I went, and Mel was there, and he called “Jace” across the room, very friendly. I went, “Rabbi Gibson, how are we?” He came up and he said, “I was really drunk, man. I was trying to get him to hit me or shoot me or something. I’m having a terrible time.” And he proceeded to unload some very personal things. He’s not my friend, but — maybe to my eternal shame — I forgave him instantly because he was there making himself vulnerable.

Should we forgive those like Mel Gibson who let their ugliness slip out when they’re hammered?
No, you can’t forgive everything from everyone. I’m not saying I forgive Mel. I’ve seen him once a decade for five minutes. We text each other once in a blue moon about something or other. I don’t know what to do with the fact that he put a character into The Passion of the Christ which is essentially a Jewish demon that doesn’t exist in the gospels. I have no idea what to do about him. But if he knocked on my door tonight and said, “Look, my hotel’s canceled. Can I stay?” I’d say, “Yes,” probably.

Shortly before you landed The Patriot, Michael Bay cast you in Armageddon as the astrophysicist who comes up with the plan to save the world from an asteroid. Billy Bob Thornton’s character refers to him as “the smartest man on the planet.”
Well, I wasn’t meant to play him. I was offered one of the astronauts. I got a phone call from some agents at ICM: “Fantastic news. Michael Bay wants you to be an Armageddon as one of the astronauts and it’s a huge break. The only thing is it starts on Tuesday,” and I go, “I’m on a film.” The next day I was going to start shooting a Northern Irish comedy called Divorcing Jack. They called back a week later to offer a consolation prize of playing Quincy. I didn’t really want the job. It was eight days’ work over six months. My first day I had the one scene I speak with Billy Bob, and after the take, Michael says, “That was awesome, I totally bought you as a science geek. Do we have you for the run of the picture?’ And I said, “Well, I’m booked for six months, but I’m just doing eight days.” He goes, “No, no, no. I’ll give you a clipboard and stick you next to Billy Bob, you’ll come in the whole time. We’ll throw a line at you here and there.” I went, “Oh thanks. Great.” Thinking, Oh, for fuck’s sake. And so then the smartest man on the planet was there every day standing next to Billy Bob with a clipboard, taking his coffee order and not doing anything. I was essentially a featured extra for six months when the people, one of whose part I could have had, are swanning around — as I would have been — as the main dudes in the picture. My ego took a bruising. I remember one scene with Bruce Willis and the astronauts where Billy Bob’s explaining what’s going to happen. I’m holding a paper mâché asteroid on a lollipop stick thinking this is the lowest point in my career so far.

Michael Bay has a reputation as a screamer on set. Did you find that to be true?
No more than any other person. Michael’s directing these alpha-male movies and he wants to create an alpha-male atmosphere on set. Same with David Ayer, the director of 2014’s Fury. He had everybody fighting every morning. It was a very, very male, macho set.

What do you mean by “fighting every morning”?
I mean like punching and kicking each other with gloves on. In fact, the day I arrived to do Fury, I went to the gym around the corner from my hotel and I was on the running machine. And I looked next to me and there’s a pair of army boots and there’s Shia LaBeouf with headphones on and we make eye contact. He takes his headphones off and he goes, “Fury?” And I went, “Yeah.” He goes, “You want to fight?” And I went, “What? Now?” He goes, “Yeah.” And I go, “No, I’m going for dinner.” He goes, “You want to fight in the morning?” I said, “No, we’re going for breakfast.” And he went, “Okay,” and put his headphones back on. I had no idea what he was talking about. It turns out what he was saying was, “Do you want to join in with all the actors? We all fight every morning.”

So actual fighting, like a fight club?
I don’t know. I didn’t go. David trained them. Obviously not anything that was going to break their nose or eyes. I just know that I didn’t want to fight Shia LaBeouf.

The period in the late ’90s when you had supporting roles in Armageddon and the sci-fi film Event Horizon seemed like a tumultuous time in your personal life. You gave up drugs in 1998 when you were about 35. You’ve said that it wasn’t about work, that even while using heavily, your career was going swimmingly.
Actors can be drunk, they can be on drugs, they can be incredibly terribly behaved. It’s one of those professions. As long as you can do what they require between action and cut, the rest of the behavior is overlooked. I wasn’t terribly behaved at all. I just was a zombie. My brain was in a Magimix. One of my great regrets, apart from wasting 20 years of my life in many areas, is that I didn’t connect with and find the time to engage with so many of the lovely people who I had ignored or dismissed or hid from in my trailer.

Who were you hiding from exactly?
Oh, just people who didn’t take drugs. I found community with people who were like me and wanted to sit up until dawn, go to risky areas of town and risk their lives to score whatever we needed to score. I thought I was hanging out with the cool people. And sometimes I was, but I thought other people were therefore not cool and not worth talking to. I realize now how ill-founded and myopic that was and just how much missed opportunity for human connection there was. I didn’t just avoid people. I avoided things that were uncomfortable. I avoided the deaths of friends. I avoided awkwardness, pain, sorrow. I’d run from those things. Now I hope that I’m present.

It’s amazing to me that you’re still married to the same woman you were with at the time you were using, Emma Hewitt, a documentary filmmaker.
It amazes me too, believe me.

Based on the behavior you’re describing I’m surprised she didn’t dump you.
Well, we did break up for a while. Seven-year itch, you know. She left me for a while. I forced her to leave me because I was a zombie. It’s the odd thing where I put on a show to the world when what I really wanted to do was get home, shut the front door, and get as close to a coma as I possibly could. She’s the only one who saw how dark I was. And she stuck around, and thank God she did.

I’ve always wanted to do things to extremes. It’s one of the things I love about acting. I like being in danger. I like jumping off things or climbing up things or my heart beating through my throat. Sometimes people ask me about parts I’m playing and say, “That must have been a very difficult scene to play.” And you think, But that’s why I do it. I do it to experience vicariously extreme things, but without there being real bullets or having to hold my real dead child. I’m constantly playing people whose children have died, or die in front of me. That’s something that happens when you get to a certain age. It used to be cops and soldiers. My friend Reed Birney said, “Just wait, darling, it’ll all be Alzheimer’s in a couple of years’ time.”

Did you field a lot of offers to play heavies after The Patriot?
I was offered lots of bad guys opposite all the A-list macho-male stars, and I turned them all down to play a supporting part as a drag queen in Sweet November, the 2001 Keanu Reeves–Charlize Theron film. And then I did a couple of plays, and I found that the window which had been opened to me — I turned around and it was closed. Like, Oh shit, what happened? I thought that I had arrived somewhere.

So you regret turning them all down?
Well, financially I regret it. I don’t regret it careerwise or artistically. There’s a number of things I could have done over the years that would’ve made me rich. And now that I’m toward the autumn of my career, I think maybe I’m an idiot and I should have done some of those things and just banked it, because other people do. I’m constantly flicking through streamers, and I see well-known actors and go, Wow, when did they do that? And they obviously just went away for a month somewhere and made some money. I’ve not done that.

There’s got to be some money in advertising. I’ve been seeing a lot of Jennifer Coolidge’s Discover credit-card ads. I can’t imagine she would have gotten those without having done The White Lotus. 
Everybody else has already done commercials. I don’t think there’s a single cast member of The White Lotus that hasn’t got endorsement deals. Parker’s in a Gap advert and Patrick endorses a number of different fashion things, as does Sam Nivola. And Sarah Catherine Hook is doing some sneakers and stuff. I mean, God bless them, good luck to them. It’s not why I’m in the business. But I don’t miss it because I never had it. Nobody’s come knocking at my door. When they look at brand association and they look at the characters I’ve played, maybe they don’t want the subliminal associations with people who burn churches or take their wife’s drugs. But listen, if people start phoning me up asking me to sell their incontinence pants, or kettles, or tea bags or whatever the hell it is, I’m available.

Around the same time you did your first Harry Potter movie, you played the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in a 2003 big-budget adaptation of Peter Pan, directed by the Australian P. J. Hogan. It looks like it was a massive undertaking.
It was a big expensive production with multiple studios. We filmed for 14 months. And I had executives who’d fly out to Australia constantly whispering to me all kinds of ludicrous hot air. These people were telling me I was some big cheese, and I was thinking, I don’t think I am, and I’m not going to get excited about it. The film tanked. I think it’s a masterpiece, but people looked at the poster and went, “Oh, fuck it. I’ve seen Hook with Robin Williams, and I’ve seen the cartoon. Why do I need to see another one?” It was a catastrophe professionally for me, a huge fall from grace. I couldn’t get a walk-on role. And I changed my agent and I almost changed my job, frankly, because I didn’t think I’d work again. The lowest I’ve ever been was after Peter Pan. I was really in despair but not as bad as I would have been had I believed any of the bullshit that had been whispered in my ear. I didn’t overinvest in the results of it, which is something I tried to counsel the young actors on The White Lotus not to do.

You went on to star in several Harry Potter films. I’m curious if you have thoughts about J.K. Rowling and what seems to be her fixation on trans women, specifically her belief that trans women’s rights erode biological women’s rights. She’s said she’s “empathetic” to them, but I think in the last year she’s become rather unhinged and mean-spirited about it on social media. It’s as though she’s entered into her Elon Musk deranged-billionaire phase.
You’re asking me to be Jo’s spokesperson and unpack what’s going on in Jo’s head?

No, I just assumed you have a relationship with her and wondered if you had an opinion.
I’ve met her once for about two minutes.

Really?
That was it. I worked for her charity Lumos. People want me to talk about J.K Rowling’s attitude to trans people all the time. And initially, I went, “I don’t know her well enough, and I’m a straight white man in late middle age, and it’s not for me to opine on feminist and trans issues.” But then I championed this fabulous trans comedian, Jordan Gray, and wrote about her, and I suddenly became a poster boy for trans rights. It was interpreted as me putting the knife into Jo, and it wasn’t. I don’t understand who she is on Twitter. But then that’s true of almost anybody online. It’s a place where people scream abuse at each other. And I’ve heard her arguments when she explained herself in that seven-part podcast, The Witch Trials of J.K Rowling, which I listened to. She says in that something like, “I may be on the wrong side of history, but this is what I feel very strongly.” It’s not my argument or discussion to have. But if there’s a vote, I know which side I’ll be voting.

You grew up Jewish in Liverpool in the ’70s, during what sounded like a terrible period. I saw the headline of an article from an Irish paper, “Jason Isaac’s Terror-Filled Teenage Years Being Terrorized and Beaten by Fascists,” and wondered if that seems overblown or about right?
No, of course not. Fucking rubbish. There were a couple of episodes, sure, when I was a teenager. The National Front was a British fascist party that put people up for election. There were times we were chased by a car full of people with pickax handles and chains and we were running and hiding. I remember people were Sieg heil-ing through the streets and everybody hid in this Chinese restaurant. They locked the doors and the waiters came out with machetes and stood there guarding the restaurant because there were jackbooted skinheads marching through the streets. But I mean, these were three or four instances over the course of my entire life.

Your parents ended up emigrating to Israel in 1988 when you were in university. You wore a yellow pin honoring the October 7 Israeli hostages at The White Lotus premiere in February.
I always wear it if I’m on a red carpet and a press line.

Public sentiment on Gaza seems to have shifted a lot since then. I wonder where you are right now on the issue?
Where I am is either a full magazine or no comment about it, because two or three sentences in a profile are not enough to deal with the issues. I wear the hostage pin because there are innocent people who were taken from their homes. Most of them are peace activists who lived in border communities where they were ferrying sick kids to hospitals and working with people from Gaza constantly. There are Holocaust survivors, there are children who were taken, there are people being starved and tortured and raped who have no access to the Red Cross. People are rightfully talking and thinking about all the civilians that are in danger everywhere else. But those people in tunnels, it’s now 600 days they’ve been there, they’ve been forgotten entirely. And so I wore the pin once and the hostages’ families got in touch with me and they thanked me enormously. I now am aware that they are watching me and that it matters to them. If my son or sister or daughter or father was being kept in a tunnel somewhere and weighed 25 kilos now, or may have been strangled or shot, and it felt important to me that some actors somewhere wore the yellow hostage pin, then who am I to not wear it?

So when it comes to more nuanced arguments about Netanyahu and the right-wing lunatics in the cabinet, or whether the IDF is or isn’t doing things, or this new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is or isn’t handing out food correctly, or whether Hamas’s press releases should be printed as fact, and whether there aren’t journalists in there — there are so many complicated arguments. It isn’t a place to dip one’s toe or to have a simple quote on it. What I wish for everybody, obviously, is peace. Who doesn’t? I don’t know anybody, apart from the extremists on all sides, who want either continued war or tension.

The argument that you make for the ribbon is a humane one. Why don’t you think more actors have worn them?
Because just for wearing it, I’ve been called a Zionist baby killer, a Zionazi. Even a yellow hostage pin for innocents is deemed political, which it isn’t.

In 2006, you did a series for Showtime called Brotherhood, about gangsters in Providence, which lasted three seasons. It didn’t have a huge audience, but it got both you and the Australian actor Jason Clarke a lot of attention. Around 2010, there were profiles of you in British papers that predicted you were going to be the next Hugh Laurie, the next Brit to conquer American television.
There was a moment after that when I was the pilot poster boy. I was offered dozens of pilots every year, and the ones I didn’t pick, that were not interesting, are still on the air. And those people no doubt are sitting on their yacht somewhere. But I made a few choices for series that didn’t get recommissioned or pilots that didn’t get picked up. And then I fell out of favor with those people making pilots because empirically I was not the guy to back.

You were so great as Cary Grant in the 2023 miniseries Archie. It focuses on his troubled late in life marriage to the much younger Dyan Cannon. Did you speak to her when preparing?
I spent a lot of time with Dyan. She’s in her 80s. She was unbelievably generous in sharing with me some incredibly private details. I asked her where he hit her, how often he hit her, what their sex was like, who came first.

Wait. You asked Dyan Cannon who came first when she was having sex with Cary Grant?
Well, she said, “I was the only woman he came inside.” Because that’s why they have Jennifer, their daughter, who I also met and spent time with. I was asking her about him being gay. She said, “He wasn’t gay when he was fucking me, honey.” And I said, “Fair enough, but did he continue to fuck you after Jennifer was born?” “Yeah.” And I go, “What was it like?” I wanted to know whether he gave her an orgasm, whether he cared, whether he finished himself off because he was thinking about men. Absolutely not, she said. These are the kind of questions you can ask someone when you’re an actor.

You once told an interviewer that you did a project with a prominent actor who literally pushed you out of the shot.
Oh Jesus. Did worse than that. Was the worst bully ever and a global icon. Did all the old tricks of doing a completely different performance off-camera than on. Yeah, it sucked. I’d never seen anything like it. Before, I would’ve licked the ground that this person walked on.

You also said you’ve worked with highly regarded actors who were “bonkers.” And some so bad their performances had to be cobbled together in the editing suite.
When I think someone’s terrible, someone else might think they’re brilliant. One of the things that’s very charismatic is madness. I remember talking about one particular person who I thought was just unwatchably bad, and my wife said, “Don’t you understand that’s why you can’t take your eyes off them? They don’t deliver lines like they understand what they’re saying, but what they do is just mesmeric.” And next time I was on set, I went, Oh God. You’re right. Mostly, what I judge on set is bad behavior. It’s selfishness, cruelty, bullying, or people complaining to the person who’s getting them dressed, who doesn’t get in a year what they earn in a day to pick their filthy underwear off the floor. That, or not turning up, or going home early, or thinking they know better than the director, or being on crack and calling prostitutes to their trailer. I come across all that stuff.

So I guess you’re going to leave me spending my days trying to figure out who all these unnamed, horribly behaved famous actors are.
I’m not so stupid as to even give hints or clues about who those people are. I recently interviewed a friend, who’s a wonderful author, at a book fair, and someone came up and said, “I’m from Penguin. You tell stories very well. You ever thought about writing a memoir?” And I went, “Not in a million fucking years until everybody I know is dead.” Because I have stories. I know where all the bodies are buried. I often fantasize about doing a junket and telling the truth, and when I win the lottery, possibly that will be the case. But there is no value, other than masochism and sabotage, in telling people the truth about people I’ve worked with or experiences I’ve had. Acting is all about secrets.