Jason Isaacs Net Worth

Biography of Jason Isaacs

Jason Isaacs is a popular British actor of Jewish origin, who gained worldwide fame for his role as Lucius Malfoy in the cult franchise about the adventures of Harry Potter. In total, the actor’s filmography includes more than sixty bright and diverse works, but it was the role of the sinister Death Eater that became his calling card and a happy ticket to the world of big cinema.

Childhood and youth

The future actor was born in Liverpool, in a traditional Jewish family. Father, Eric Isaacs, worked as a jeweler, mother, Sheila Nathan, was engaged in housekeeping and raising four sons (Jason has two older brothers and one younger). The boy spent his early years in the Liverpool suburb of Chaydwall, which housed a large Jewish community. Jason’s parents were very religious people, regularly went to the synagogue and introduced their children to the Jewish faith from childhood. The boys went to a Jewish school and attended cheder twice a week. [начальная еврейская школа – прим. uznayvse.ru], where they studied the basics of religion and Hebrew.

When Jason was eleven years old, the family moved to London. There he went to the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School for boys. During his studies, he became interested in theater and enrolled in a drama club. The father did not take this hobby seriously and wanted his son to receive a law degree.

Jason did not argue with the head of the family and after graduating from school he entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Bristol. But he did not part with his hobby – he played in amateur performances, participated in the Edinburgh Youth Theater Festival every summer as part of the National Student Company, and even directed several productions.

Actor career

After graduating from Bristol, Isaacs decided to still get a professional acting education and entered the London School of Speech and Drama. There he met Sean Pertwee (now a famous British actor) and Paul W.S. Andersen (director, second husband of Mila Jovovich). In 1988, Jason completed his studies and, like many debutants, began acting in television series. In 1989, he appeared in a big movie, playing the episodic role of a doctor in the comedy Big Man with Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson in the lead roles.

At the same time, he played in the troupe of the National Theater, where he was entrusted with the role of Louis Ironson in the production of Angels in America based on the play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The novice actor also successfully coped with the image of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the play “1953”, staged on the stage of London’s Almeida Theater. In the late 90s, Isaacs increasingly began to appear on the big screen – he played Dr. Quincy in the cult “Armageddon” (1998), the priest Richard Smythe in the melodrama “The End of the Romance” (1999), Lord Felton in the adventure fantasy “Dragonheart” (1996). ).

But the real popularity came to the actor thanks to the role of the sadistic Colonel Tavington in the historical drama The Patriot (2000). The character he played (Colonel Tavington, obsessed with spy mania) turned out to be so disgusting that he caused a whole storm of indignation in society. The filmmakers were accused of slandering the British army, and Isaacs was assigned the role of a villain, which other directors began to actively use.

But Jason was not satisfied with such a one-sided perception of his acting potential, and he tried his best to demonstrate different facets of his skill. In the melodrama “Sweet November”, the actor played a transvestite who liked to dress up in women’s clothes, and in the military drama he appeared in the image of the brave commander of a company of American Rangers, Captain Mike Steele.

But still, Isaacs was best able to play the role of villains, which the creators of the cult Harry Potter franchise hurried to take advantage of. They immediately offered the actor to play Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater and the father of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), Harry Potter’s main rival.

Jason himself saw himself in the image of the boastful writer Zlatopust Lockons, and not just another “ghoul”. Moreover, at about the same time, he was supposed to start filming in Peter Pan, where he was also offered the role of a negative hero, the cruel pirate Captain Hook. Playing two villains at the same time seemed like overkill to the actor, but in the end he nevertheless gave his consent to both roles.

Isaacs starred in all parts of the Potter series, which became his finest hour and made him famous all over the world. “Peter Pan” was also waiting for success, but not comparable to “Harry Potter”. In addition to the leader of the pirates, Jason also played in it the father of Wendy and her brothers, a noble London aristocrat.

Throughout his cinematic career, Isaacs has starred in more than six dozen projects, many of which are television. Noteworthy are his roles in the series The Brotherhood, Handsome, Rosemary’s Baby, as well as the science fiction film Star Trek: Discovery and the puppet web series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

In the scandalous satirical comedy The Death of Stalin (2017), banned from distribution in Russia, he got the role of Marshal Zhukov. And in the crime thriller Hotel Mumbai: Confrontation (2018), Jason played the influential Russian businessman Vasily Archevsky. In 2019, two premieres took place at once with the participation of Jason – the chilling thriller “Dark Mirror” and the crime detective “London Fields”.

Jason Isaacs personal life

Jason met his future wife, Emma Hewitt, while studying at the London Theater School. They have been together for more than thirty years, raising two daughters – Lily (born 2002) and Ruby (born 2005).

Emma is also an actress, plays in the theater and starred in television series. Whether the girls will follow in the footsteps of their parents is too early to say, but judging by the publications on social networks, they grow up as very eccentric and creative people.

In August 2024, Isaacs gave a detailed interview to The BigIssue, in which he frankly spoke about his alcohol and drug addiction, which he could not overcome for twenty years.

For the first time, a boy from a decent Jewish family tried strong alcohol at the age of 12 – with friends he went through whiskey in a bar so much that he could hardly stand on his feet, fell several times and bruised his head on the curb. But a few days later he wanted to get drunk again and feel cheerful and carefree – Jason did not notice how he was drawn into this addiction and became an alcoholic.

Over time, he wanted new, stronger sensations, and the young man “sat down” on drugs. Only twenty years later, the actor managed to completely get rid of alcohol and drug addiction, which caused a lot of serious problems for himself, as well as for relatives and friends.

Jason Isaacs now

During the global coronavirus pandemic, the actor, like many of his colleagues, became an active user of social networks, often went live and even took part in challenges on Tik Tok. Jason Isaacs appeared in the TV series The Great, a comedy about how the young Empress Catherine II (Elle Fanning) tries to rebuild Russia. The actor got the role of Emperor Peter the Great.

The actor also starred in the biopic Cult Party People (2020) with Ewen Bremner. And, of course, the special episode “Return to Hogwarts”, filmed with the participation of HBO in connection with the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film, could not do without Lucius Malfoy. This is a documentary project for which the main actors of the saga gave interviews with previously unpublished details about the shooting.

Top Movies