Jason Isaacs has reflected on playing “racist” Harry Potter villain Lucius Malfoy, saying that his job in the film series was to help audiences understand why his character’s son, Draco, was “such a little s*** at school.”
The 61-year-old British actor, who starred as the “pure-blood” wizard and Lord Voldemort follower in six of the eight movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s book series, spoke about his role as the “popinjay” Lucius on Monday’s episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast.
“My job wasn’t being in a franchise,” Isaacs clarified. “My job was trying to explain to the audience why Draco was such a little s*** at school.
“He came from a loveless home, and I came from a long, unbroken chain of loveless parenting,” he said of his on-screen son, portrayed by Tom Felton.
“And to play that popinjay and that racist, it might be magical, but the parallels are pretty transparent: someone who doesn’t think that Muggles should mix blood with wizards, and somebody trying to make Hogwarts great again,” The White Lotus star continued in an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Isaacs further hit out at the term “franchise,” often used to describe the Harry Potter films, saying he was “repulsed” by it.
“As much as it was fantastical, I always take the acting incredibly seriously,” he said.
Offering an example, he recalled filming one of the scenes in 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 “when [Ralph Fiennes] was around bullying me as Voldemort, humiliating me, and snapping my wand at my table.”
It “felt like being castrated in front of my family,” Isaacs said. “It was heartbreaking and humiliating. I don’t know how to phone a performance in, really. That felt like serious acting. It didn’t feel like we were in something silly.”
Despite his efforts in the movies, Isaacs previously confessed that they weren’t “that fun to make.”
“There’s some magic that happens in those books. and in those films,” he said during a February appearance on the BBC’s One Show. “It’s a terrible confession to make, but they weren’t that fun to make. It’s quite boring, to make these big special effects films.”
He added, however, that “the pleasures all come afterwards when I see and meet people for whom their lives were changed by it.”
“And still, people are reading it and sharing it with their children. Some people say their lives were saved by it, and I believe them. There’s something happened, who knows why?” Isaacs continued. “But when those ingredients came together and the soufflé rose, and it created just love around the world. And a sense of belonging.”
Isaac’s remarks come as Warner Bros. and HBO are currently in the process of rebooting Harry Potter for an expected 10-year-long television series, with each season based on one of Rowling’s seven books.
Major casting announcements have already been revealed as John Lithgow has been confirmed to take on the role of Hogwarts’ beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore; Janet McTeer as Hogwarts professor and head of Gryffindor, Minerva McGonagall; Paapa Essiedu as the cold and mysterious Professor Severus Snape; and Nick Frost as gameskeeper and half-giant Rubeus Hagrid.
Additionally, Luke Thallon will play Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Quirinus Quirrell, and Paul Whitehouse will take on the role of Hogwarts caretaker Argus Filch.
The lead casting of the young trio, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley, has not yet been announced, though an open casting call was launched earlier this year for children from the UK and Ireland to audition. The hope is that newcomers will take over the iconic roles made famous by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.
