Screen baddie Jason sheds hard guy image
Jewish Telegraph, January 2007
SAY it quietly but Jason Isaac’s may not be the hard man we all thought he was.
The Liverpool-born actor has scared millions of children as Harry Potter baddie Lucius Malfoy and sent chills up the spines of many adults with his bad guy roles.
Yet, he revealed this week that you are more likely to find him at home singing along to The Wizard of Oz or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with his daughters Lily and Ruby.
Jason is currently preparing to star in a West End revival of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter alongside Lee Evans.
The play — celebrating its 50th anniversary — will be performed at London’s Trafalgar Studios from February 2 until March 24.
“It’s a fantastic piece,” Jason told me. “There’s a reason why certain plays stick around for decades. The Dumb Waiter is incredibly entertaining. It’s funny, disturbing and makes great theatre.
“I also agreed to do the play because the director, Harry Burton, is an old friend, we had Harold Pinter’s blessing and I’m a fan of Lee Evans.”
He added: “Lee is nothing like the crazed man we are used to seeing on stage. It’s a serious play. We are not trying to get laughs but I reckon people will find it funny.
“Pinter threw a bomb into the theatre world. He was a pre-cursor to what gave the world people like Quentin Tarantino. All modern elements can be traced back to Pinter.”
The Dumb Waiter sees two killers waiting in a basement for the identity of their next hit. Something has disturbed their normally efficient routine and bizarre orders keep arriving via the dumb waiter.
“I’ve seen so many bad productions of the play that when I read it, I thought I had never really seen it.
“It’s an interesting experience, Lee and I are from different universes and so is Harold Pinter. it’s an interesting creative process to honour Harold’s writing. We are remembering the atmosphere in which Harold wrote it.”
Once the run has finished, Jason — currently suffering from a cold — will be heading back to America for the second series of Brotherhood.
Viewers of this superior drama centring on two brothers in Providence may be slightly confused as Jason’s character, Irish-American gangster Michael Caffee, seemed to have been beaten to death at the end of the first series.
“I’ve not seen any scripts for the second series so I have no idea what is going to happen,” the 43-year-old said. “Hopefully they don’t just want me for an open casket shot as I’m packing up the whole family to come with me while I film.”
When I suggest that Caffee will be angrier than ever — provided he survived the attack by policeman Declan Giggs — Isaacs replied: “Or maybe he has the mental age of a three-year-old.”
He added: “Brotherhood had a fantastic response from the critics, but didn’t get large audiences. Maybe in the UK people couldn’t be bothered scrolling down to channel 179.
“I have a perverse attitude to work. I love the work but once it’s done I couldn’t care who watches it or how many watch it. On stage it’s different though.
“Obviously I would have liked people in England to watch it. I had friends asking me when it’s on and I’d say it has already been on.”
Before signing up for Brotherhood, Jason — who appeared last year as British ambassador Sir Mark Brydon in the BBC’s acclaimed drama The State Within — revealed that he sought the advice of close friend Dominic West, the star of The Wire.
“He told me to think about it carefully,” he said. “You have to sign on for like six years even if the programme isn’t going to last that many seasons.”
Talking about the quality of television programmes at the moment, he said: “I don’t watch much grown up TV anymore. It’s all Teletubbies and classic films like The Wizard of Oz. I know all the words to the songs. It doesn’t do my hard man image any good.”
Jason added that whilst on film sets he used to shoot a lot of behind the scenes footage which would appear as extras on DVDs on his films.
“I would like to work on the other side of the camera,” he said. “I used to think a lot more about directing but I love spending time with my children. I have no hysterical need to do it.”
Jason revealed that despite his many credits he is not recognised — and that suits him just fine.
“I have many famous friends who are always recognised. I don’t know how I would cope with that. I relish the anonymity. When I go out with Lee Evans, he is stopped by fans and he always makes time for them.”
Jason was a regular visitor to Israel to see his parents Linda and Eric in Herzliya Pituach — although he hasn’t been there for more than a year.
“Once I had kids I became more nervous about the intifada,” he said. “And as my three brothers — Geoffrey, Brent and Damian — all live here it is easier for my parents to come over here.
“Israel is a magical place and all Jews should feel comfortable there. To have a place that’s home and to always belong is a stabilising feeling.”
Jason, who said he only returns to Liverpool for barmitzvahs and weddings, is a former pupil at the city’s King David Primary School. He was also a member of JLGB and attended Harold House.
“It taught me a lot of things, like how to play table tennis,” he laughed.
His brother Geoffrey still plays football and tennis and once ran the Eilat marathon.
“He is super-fit,” Jason said. “I’ve only ever beaten him twice at tennis. When his boys were growing up, they would enter triathlons alongside adults.”
Jason — married to BBC documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt — said culturally he is “very, very Jewish. I want my kids to be aware of their heritage. They make Shabbat for their grandparents”.
If his co-stars are Jewish, he will also go to their homes for seder nights or festivals if invited.
