Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is an English actor.
Isaacs’ film roles include 1997 Event Horizon; Colonel Tavington in The Patriot (2000), Michael D. Steele in Black Hawk Down (2001), Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series (2002–2011), Capt. Hook in Peter Pan (2003), Marshal Georgy Zhukov in The Death of Stalin (2017), and Vasili in Hotel Mumbai (2018). His other films include Event Horizon (1997), Divorcing Jack (1998), The End of the Affair (1999), Sweet November (2001), The Tuxedo (2002), Battle of the Brave (2004), Nine Lives (2005), Friends with Money (2006), Good (2008), Green Zone (2010), Abduction (2011), A Single Shot (2013), Fury (2014), A Cure for Wellness (2016), London Fields (2018), Occupation: Rainfall (2020), and Mass (2021).
Isaacs' roles in television have included Det. Michael Britten in the NBC series Awake (2012), Dr. Hunter Aloysius "Hap" Percy in the Netflix supernatural mystery drama streaming series The OA (2016–2019) and Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2018). He was also the voice of Admiral Zhao in the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) and the second season of The Legend of Korra (2013), the Grand Inquisitor / Sentinel in Star Wars Rebels (2014–2016), Billy Butcher in The Boys Presents: Diabolical (2022–present), and Good Sam (2022–present). His other television roles include Capital City (1989–1990), Civvies (1992), Dangerous Lady (1995), The Fix (1997), Scars (2006), Rosemary's Baby (2014), Dig (2015), and The Great (2021).
Isaacs has appeared on stage as Louis Ironson in Declan Donnellan's 1992 and 1993 Royal National Theatre premiere of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and as hitman Ben in a 2007 revival of Harold Pinter's 1957 play The Dumb Waiter at Trafalgar Studios in the West End.
Isaacs was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for The State Within (2006) and for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Harry H. Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe (2008). He also was nominated for the International Emmy Award for Best Actor and won the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for Case Histories (2011–2013) and was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama for Brotherhood (2006–2008)
Early life
Jason Isaacs was born to Jewish parents in Liverpool on 6 June 1963. His father was a jeweller. He has two older brothers and one younger brother. He spent his earliest childhood years in the Liverpool suburb of Childwall, in an "insular and closely knit" Jewish community co-founded by his Eastern European Jewish great-grandparents. He has stated that being Jewish played a big role in his childhood, as he attended youth club in the local synagogue of King David High School in Liverpool's Wavertree district, as well as a cheder twice a week as a young adult. When he was 11, he moved with his family to London and attended the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in nearby Elstree at the same time as David Baddiel, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Kermode, and Matt Lucas. He describes the bullying and intolerance he observed during his childhood as "preparation" for portraying the "unattractive" villains he has most often played.
As a Jewish teenager in London, Isaacs endured antisemitism by the National Front, a far-right extremist organisation. His parents eventually immigrated to Israel. He later told an interviewer, "There were constantly people beating us up or smashing windows. If you were ever, say, on a Jewish holiday, identifiably Jewish, there was lots of violence around. But particularly when I was 16, in 1979, the National Front were really taking hold, there were leaflets at school, and Sieg Heiling and people goose-stepping down the road and coming after us." Following in the footsteps of his three brothers (one who became a doctor, one a lawyer, and one an accountant), he studied law at Bristol University from 1982 to 1985, becoming involved in the university's theatre club there; he eventually acted in over 30 plays and performed each summer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, first with Bristol University and then twice with the National Student Theatre Company. After graduating, he went immediately to train at London's Central School of Speech and Drama from 1985 to 1988.
