Jason Isaacs

"Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me."

Hello to Jason Isaacs!

—Mark Kermode

Jason Isaacs is one of the most deliciously, delectably, devilish British actors of the present day. He was born in 1961 in Liverpool to a Jewish family, and his family were harassed by ultranationalists during his youth. He often plays despicable characters, despite being a self-described boring suburban man in private life.

---

Roles

• Inspector Morse as Doctor Desmond Collier
• Angels in America (stage play) as Louis Ironson
• 1953 (stage play) as Benito Mussolini
• Dragonheart as Lord Felton
• Event Horizon as D.J.
• The West Wing as Colin Ayres
• Armageddon as Doctor Ronald Quincy
• The Patriot as Colonel William Tavington
• Black Hawk Down as Captain Mike Steele
• Harry Potter as Lucius Malfoy
• Resident Evil (uncredited as Doctor William Birkin)
• Peter Pan as George Darling and Captain Hook
• Avatar: The Last Airbender as Admiral Zhao
• Entourage as Fredrick Line
• The State Within as Sir Mark Brydon
• Grindhouse as Bearded Man in the trailer for Don't
• Green Zone as Major Briggs
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow as Satan
• Cars 2 as Siddeley and Leland Turbo.
• Case Histories as Jackson Brodie
• Awake

---

Tropes

• Evil Brit: Colonel Tavington in The Patriot. Also Lucius Malfoy (although almost every character in that series is British) and Captain Hook.
• Fake American: As Dr. Quincy, Captain Steele, Admiral Zhao, and Det. Britten.
  • Fake German in Good (in which he, alongside Viggo Mortensen, speaks English, without a German accent.)
• Ink Suit Actor: Admiral Zhao really looks like Jason Isaacs with large sideburns.
• Large Ham: One of the largest kosher hams after William Shatner. During the filming of Chamber of Secrets, he, Alan Rickman and Kenneth Branagh had a competition over who could be the hammiest.
• Matzo Fever
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: He has described himself as a "cringing, neurotic Jewish mess."
• One of Us: He has great love for Harry Potter and his character of Lucius. Of the adult actors, he's totally the one having the most fun (even attempting to steal his pimp cane from the set after filming)
• Throw It In: The initial concept for Lucius Malfoy was of a man with short blond hair and a pinstriped suit. Jason Isaacs argued that Malfoy, being a wizard supremacist, would want to look as different from a Muggle as possible. He put on a blond wig and velvet cloak and suggested a cane for grand gestures, leading to the iconic Lucius Malfoy look.