Jason Isaacs extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Jason Isaacs
At the Hootie & the Blowfish Monday After The Masters Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament, North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on 11 April 2005
Born	6 June 1963 (1963-06-06) (age 45) Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Years active	1988–present
Domestic partner(s)	Emma Hewitt (1988–present)
Awards won Other awards Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Acting 2005

Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is a British actor born in Liverpool, England, best 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.¹² 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,³⁴ 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.⁵⁶⁷⁸

Contents 1 Personal background and education 2 Career 3 Selected work 3.1 Film 3.2 Television 3.3 Theatre 3.4 Animated television series and video games 4 Notes 5 References 5.1 Biographies 5.2 Interviews 5.3 Other articles

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,⁹ 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.¹⁰ The third of four sons,¹ Isaacs attended a Jewish school and a cheder twice a week as a young adult.⁹¹¹ 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.⁹ He describes his childhood as "preparation" for portraying the "unattractive", villainous characters whom he has most often played.¹²

Following his more traditionally-inclined brothers, who became a doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant,¹ 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).¹¹³¹⁴

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).¹² Although unmarried, he refers to Hewitt as his "wife".¹⁵

Despite Isaacs' recent screen celebrity as Lucius Malfoy, he maintains a relatively-modest, "calm, sedate and suburban" life,¹⁵¹⁶ 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...."² Described as an "invisible star" who can still travel by the London Underground to film premières unrecognized, 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."¹⁷ "I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the streets."²

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).¹⁴ 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 1992.²¹⁴ 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 1995.¹⁸

On stage he portrayed the "emotionally waffling"¹⁴ 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 1993.³⁴ 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?"¹¹

His first Hollywood role was in the Bruce Willis blockbuster Armageddon (1998).¹⁴¹⁸ 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.¹

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).¹⁴ 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.¹⁴¹⁹ 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.¹

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."² 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".²⁰

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."²¹ 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.' "²² 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.²³ 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).²⁴

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).²¹⁸

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.²⁵²⁶ 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 2008.²⁷²⁸ 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).¹⁸

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).⁵⁶⁷⁸²⁹ 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 fictionalized 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 2008.¹⁸³⁰³¹

In 2007 he was cast in Jan de Bont's then-still-upcoming film Stopping Power, to play its star John Cusack's "nemesis",³²³³ 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.³⁴ 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

Year	Film	Role	Awards and nominations
1989	The Tall Guy	Doctor #2
1994	Shopping	Market Trader
1995	Solitaire For Two	Harry
1996	Dragonheart	Lord Felton
1997	Event Horizon	D.J.
1998	Armageddon	Dr. Ronald Quincy, Research
	Divorcing Jack	Cow Pat Keegan
	Soldier	Mekum
	St. Ives	Alain de Keroual de Saint-Yves
1999	The End of the Affair	Father Richard Smythe
2000	The Patriot	British Colonel William Tavington	Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Villain (Internet Only) (nominated) (2001). British Supporting Actor of the Year, Awards for the London Film Critics Circle (ALFS) (nominated) (2001).
2001	Sweet November	Chaz Watley
	Black Hawk Down	US Army Captain Mike Steele	Award for Best Acting Ensemble, Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS) Award (nominated) (2002).
2002	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets2	Lucius Malfoy	Award for Best Acting Ensemble, Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS) Award (nominated) (2003).
	Passionada	Charles Beck
	Resident Evil	Dr. William Birkin (uncredited)
	The Tuxedo	Clark Devlin
	Windtalkers	Major Mellitz
2003	Peter Pan	George Darling and Captain Hook
2004	Nouvelle-France	Général James Wolfe
2005	The Chumscrubber	Mr. Parker
	Elektra	DeMarco (uncredited)
	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	Lucius Malfoy
	Nine Lives	Damian	Best Ensemble Acting Award, Gotham Awards (2005).2
	Tennis, Anyone...?	Johnny Green
2006	Friends with Money	David
2007	Grindhouse, in the faux trailer "Don't"	Bearded Man
	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix22	Lucius Malfoy
2008	Good	Maurice
	La Conjura de El Escorial	Antonio Pérez
2009	"Green Zone"30	Major Briggs
	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Lucius Malfoy Appearing only in a brief cameo appearance.
2010	"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I"24	Lucius Malfoy
2011	"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II"24	Lucius Malfoy

Some of the information in this table was obtained from "Jason Isaacs: Filmography". Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Retrieved on 2007-11-28.

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	Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television, 65th Golden Globe Awards (nominated) (2008).25
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 "Jason Isaacs: Filmography". Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Retrieved on 2007-11-28.

Theatre

Year(s) of appearance	Play	Role	Awards and nominations
Unknown	God: A Comedy in One Actcitations needed
1992	The Black and White Minstrels The King's Head Theatre, London	Cyril
1992 and 1993	Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes4 Royal National Theatre, London	Louis Ironson
1993	1953 Almeida Theatre, London	Benito Mussolini
2000	The Force of Change Royal Court Theatre, London
2007	The Dumb Waiter29 Trafalgar Studios, London	Ben

Animated television series and video games

Year(s) of appearance	Animated television series or video game	Role	Awards and nominations
1994	Beneath a Steel Sky (video game)	(Voice)
2005	Spartan: Total Warrior (video game)	(Voice of Sejanus)
2005–2006	Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated television series)	Admiral Zhao

Some of the information in this table was obtained from "Jason Isaacs: Filmography". Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Retrieved on 2007-11-28.

Notes

References

Biographies

• Jason Isaacs at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 23 June 2008. [Includes unsourced "Personal Quotes".]
• ""Jason Isaacs Biography"". Yahoo! Movies UK & Ireland. uk.movies.yahoo.com (Copyright © Baseline 2006). Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
• Marx, Rebecca Flint. "Jason Isaacs: Biography". Allmovie. Moviefone. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.

Interviews

• "Jason Isaacs Video Interview". The London Paper. thelondonpaper.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-27. [Filmed on the set of Brotherhood; includes Isaacs' demonstration of a magic trick.]
• "Mark Kermode v Jason Isaacs on Johnny Depp". BBC Radio 5 Live (2008-04-16). Retrieved on 2008-08-17.
• Lester, Paul (2008-02-01). "JC interview: Jason Isaacs", The Jewish Chronicle, thejc.com. Retrieved on 29 June 2008. Archived from the original on 4 February 2008. 
• Mitovich, Matt Webb (2006-07-21). "Interviews & Features: Jason Isaacs: More Than a Bad Brother", TV Guide, TVGuide.com. Retrieved on 24 June 2008. Archived from the original on 20 October 2008. 

Other articles

• Hootie & the Blowfish (2005-12-19). "2005 Monday After the Masters Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament Sets Record with $425,000 in Donations", Press Release, hootiegolf.com. Retrieved on 1 July 2008.  ["Players: See Past Participants."]
• Pfefferman, Naomi (2000-06-30). "More Than a Villain: With "The Patriot," Jason Isaacs, a British Jew, Cements His Reputation as One of Hollywood's Hottest Heavies", The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, jewishjournal.com. Retrieved on 29 June 2008. 
• –––. "Once a 'wimp,' Actor Thrives On Portraying Villains", The Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, jewishaz.com (2000-07-14). Retrieved on 29 June 2008. 
• Rees, Jasper (2007-01-27). "'There is a streak of cruelty in me': Jason Isaacs Says Life Prepared Him to Become a Specialist in Unattractive Characters", The Daily Telegraph, Review, telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved on 27 June 2008. 

Persondata
NAME	Isaacs, Jason
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	British actor
DATE OF BIRTH	6 June 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Liverpool, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH