Isaacs to the Power of Three
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42 ● ARTS&BOOKS/TELEVISION JEWISH CHRONICLE, November 3, 2006 Isaacs to the power of three Jason Isaacs is going to be a diplomat, a crook and a thug, all at the same time. How come? Jenni Frazer explains f you are flicking through the TV men on the show who were perfect channels next Thursday, you models, and I just used to listen to could be forgiven for thinking them to get the sound right. It’s a that you had stumbled across a kind of cross between Boston and Ispecial Jason Isaacs tribute night. Brooklyn. It would be like someone The Liverpool-born actor is ap- saying oh, do a Liverpool accent pearing on not two, but three channels when actually they meant North simultaneously — on Channel 4 in Wirral — it’s that specific.” “Scars,” in “The Brotherhood” on Isaacs’s performance as Michael FX, and on BBC One in the high- Caffee has won rave reviews from profile drama, “The State Within.” US critics, and he returns to the It is, chuckles Isaacs , “the revenge States in April to make another series. of the Jews… we’re everywhere!” Meanwhile, over on Channel 4 is Isaacs, 43, can confidently point to the programme of which Isaacs is an extraordinary body of work in currently most proud, “Scars.” It is both film and TV, from serious nasty a harrowing, one-hour-long piece in “The Patriot” to fairly unpleasant originally shown on More4, but now nasty Lucius Malfoy in the Harry being screened on the terrestrial Potter movies. He was also a tri- channel to give it a bigger audience. umphantly flamboyant Captain Hook “[Documentary film-maker] Leo in the 2003 film of “Peter Pan,” rel- Regan found an extremely violent ishing every moustachioed twirl. man, ‘Chris,’ and asked him to speak Last night (November 2) Isaacs about his experiences, and I play opened in the first episode of a new him. He’s a working-class English- six-part thriller on BBC One, “The man who’s done a lot of damage in his State Within,” in which he plays life, and he talks about it. He Britain’s ambassador to Washington, incriminates himself in all kinds of Sir Mark Brydon. It has been billed as serious crimes. It had a phenomenal “State of Play” meets “Spooks.” response on More4; and I must admit We first meet Brydon as the West that my first response was to pick up teeters on “a huge push to war.” There Unusually, Jason Isaacs gets to play a heroic character in BBC One’s new prime-time thriller, “The State Within” my wife and kids and leave London. are, says Isaacs, “very good reasons for Chris is representative of thousands Britain and America to go to war Manipulation follows manipula- together the truth of what is hap- is already talk of a second series. It of men like him for whom the default with the dictator of the fictional Is- tion and the fascination for Isaacs is pening. also stars, as the US Defence Secre- position is violence.” lamic state of Tyrgyztan. But the in seeing how diplomats, who are The show, written by Lizzie Mick- tary, the 1980s cop show icon Sharon For Isaacs, the value in doing it was challenge for my character is to find used to deconstructing messages ery and Dan Percival, is, says Isaacs, Gless, once the Cagney of “Cagney to try to ensure that other people did out who’s running events.” coming out of foreign capitals, bring a seat-of-the-pants thriller, and there and Lacey.” not follow the same path as the vio- Programme number two, showing lent protagonist. “As an actor, this on FX, a digital TV channel, is “The was the kind of thing you dream of. Brotherhood,” a critical smash in It was incredibly invigorating… I From law student to Harry Potter: Jason Isaacs in brief the US. Isaacs has high hopes for it don’t often get to play someone for when awards season comes around. whom the consequences of his actions ■ Born in Liverpool, June 6 1963. army officer, Colonel William In the show, Isaacs plays Michael are so real.” Isaacs declined to meet Tavington, in the Mel Gibson Caffee, the criminal brother of an “Chris,” but understands that he ■ Studied Law at Bristol American Revolution movie “The ambitious politician. Each brother watched the programme six times, University, graduating in 1985, Patriot” (2000). despises the other — Michael thinks back-to-back. He is, says Isaacs, “in but then decided to go into his politician brother is corrupt, his a lot of pain.” acting. ■ Biggest role — as Lucius brother thinks he is a thug. His next project is a complete Malfoy, enemy of Harry Potter. The special aspect of “The Broth- change of direction. He is making a ■ While at Bristol, he erhood” is the setting, in Providence, film with Hugh Jackman and Ro- directed/appeared in over 20 ■ On the “Harry Potter” books: Rhode Island, one of the most tight- mola Garai based on [the Glasgow university productions. “I suddenly understood why my ly knit communities on the east coast Jewish playwright] CP Taylor’s friends, who I’d thought where of America and one that has pro- award-winning 1981 play, “Good.” ■ Studied, as a postgraduate, at slightly backward, had been so duced the oddest of accents. The central character, Halder, is a the Central School of Speech and addicted to these children’s “I love accents,” says Isaacs, “but professor of literature: a good, liberal- Drama, graduating in 1989. He books. They’re like crack." this one is really specific, because minded man who step by carefully ra- met his wife, Emma Hewitt, there the family is Irish-American, so the tionalised step ends up embracing the — they married in 1988. ■ On his career: “Every time I accent has to be Providence Irish. It Final Solution. Isaacs plays Halder’s make a plan, God laughs at me.” is related to the Boston accent but best friend, a Jewish psychiatrist — ■ During much of his early Evil: Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy even some of the Boston-born ac- a surprising role because, in nearly 20 career, he worked in theatre ■ On fame: “I imagined, like tors on the show found it difficult.” years of acting, he has almost never productions on the London most of us, that I’d like obscene amounts of money and have He and Jason Clarke, the actor played anyone Jewish. stage. amounts of money, but the obscene amounts of fame have who plays his brother, spent much of He loved “Good” as a cautionary people I’ve met and worked with these awful lives. Really, I mean their time on set listening to “street tale — it shows, says Isaacs, “how easy ■ Big break — as the evil English who have those obscene hideously compromised lives.” Providence” on their iPods. “There it is for one’s civil rights to be stripped were a lot of teamsters [local union] or eroded.” Spooky? Let’s just say scarily clichéd Daniella Peled finds BBC1’s high-tech new spy drama a poor cover for old conspiracy theories about Mossad Spooks pervasive conspiracy theory that Jews rather than their own country. BBC1, Monday, October 16, 23, 30 Mossad was behind the attacks of 11 The storyline prompted newspaper ✡ September, not to mention 7 July. reports that senior Mossad people But the truly offensive aspect of the were furious with the BBC. But pooks” ticks all the boxes for a story surrounds the spook with the “Spooks” was at again in this week’s slick, primetime BBC drama. quasi-Jewish name of Neil Sternin, episode, which featured a Mossad hit There is the edgy camera work, whose pregnant Israeli wife was blown squad at large in London. the high-tech gadgets, and up by a bus bomber in Tel Aviv. And yet what “Spooks” does is per- Sscenes of veritable fight-porn in at- So he kills an MI5 agent and pass- petuate the possibly undeserved rep- mospheric London locations. es secrets to Mossad before being dis- utation of the Israeli agency as the So no surprise, then, that the writ- covered and committing suicide. world’s top spy organisation. ers decided to layer cliché upon cliché “He was hugely pro-Israel,” says Disastrous Mossad operations in- with a two-part episode focusing on a lead spook Adam Carter (Rupert Pen- clude the 1972 murder of a waiter Mossad plot to stage terror acts and ry-Jones), recalling an argument over mistaken for a Palestinian terrorist in cause mayhem in the Middle East. MI5 agent Adam Carter pins down colleague Neil Sternin over dual loyalties Middle East politics, which ended Norway, and the embarrassing at- The Brits are poised to sign a secret in Adam asking Neil which side he tempted assassination of Hamas lead- deal with Saudi Arabia guaranteeing cuting hostages until the Saudi king nuclear deal and seeing the kingdom was on, Israel or England. As for er Khaled Meshal in Jordan in 1997. cut-price oil in return for nuclear agrees to release hundreds of terror- descend into bloody disorder? Neil’s answer — “he never gave me Never mind staging al-Qaeda terror technology. Cue a Mossad team pos- ists from prison. Dabbling with the idea that Israel one,” says Adam grimly. “Until now.” plots — maybe Mossad is planting ing as an al-Qaeda cell, who storm the It all falls into place. Who but Israel is behind acts of global terrorism Thus we have the old slander of controversial storylines in BBC dra- Saudi trade mission and begin exe- would benefit from derailing a Saudi would be laughable if not for the Jewish loyalty being to Israel or fellow mas to improve its public image.