Jason Isaacs is an English actor. He is known for his performance as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the American television series Brotherhood. Though most of his work ha...
This wasn't just a sitcom. It was like watching a five-act Ibsen (Henrik Ibsen) play. Corbett was making us laugh, but we were laughing at his pain and the hopelessness of his situation. Then there were the story lines ... politics, class, religion, sex. This wasn't what an early-1960s comedy was supposed to deal with. Everybody knows his Steptoe (Steptoe and Son (1962)) voice, but that was nothing like his real voice. He was actually raised in Wythenshawe. He had that peculiar northern thing of trying to make his accent posher than it was. A bit like Harold, really. So much of his real life mirrored Steptoe and I think Galton (Ray Galton) and Simpson (Alan Simpson) picked up on that. Unfortunately, typecasting was far more prevalent in those days. Harry H. Corbett was, without doubt, the finest actor in the country, but the more successful he was as Steptoe, the less work he was offered. He wanted to walk away, but he couldn't. He was very comfortably trapped. I've got mates who are in exactly the same situation. Starring in hugely successful shows, earning loads of money - but they can't stand their jobs. The country loved Harold Steptoe, but Corbett hated him. Really hated him. (On playing Harry H. Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe (2008))
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"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?" -to the producers of the stage version of "Angels in America" while auditioning for the part of "Louis".
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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. And I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the streets. So I'm quite happy not to get the girl.
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Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me.
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On the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling: "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 where slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack."
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Fact
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Good friends with Paul Greengrass.
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Is an avid comic-book fan and possessed an enormous collection of Marvel and DC titles as a child.
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Has a cult following due to the weekly 'Kermode and Mayo's Film Review' on BBC, Radio Five Live, where he is regularly saluted ("Hello to Jason Isaacs!") by his former classmate and film critic Dr Mark Kermode, a practice that the fan base of this show picked up.
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Ranked 54 on Empire Magazine's 100 Sexiest Movie Stars.
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Harry Potter co-star Gary Oldman is one of his favorite actors.
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Speaks Spanish fluently.
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His parents were both from Ashkenazi Jewish families. Their ancestors emigrated from Eastern Europe to England.
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Met his wife, Emma Hewitt, at drama school.
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In addition to doubling for Mel Gibson, Girard Swan worked as Isaacs's stand-in and photo double in The Patriot (2000).
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Longtime best friend of writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson.
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Shares two roles with Hans Conried. Conried appeared in the Disney animated version of Peter Pan (1953), while Isaacs appeared in the 2003 live action film. Both films followed a tradition encouraged by J.M. Barrie, and followed in most stage productions, that Mr. Darling and Captain Hook be played by the same actor. Accordingly, he and Conried played both parts in their respective films.
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Has a daughter named Rose, born August 2005.
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Had an uncredited role as Dr. William Birkin (and the narrator) in Resident Evil (2002).
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Was set to play Dr. William Birkin in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), but left the project.
$12 Million
