Jason Isaacs Pod cast released 10/17/07

Transcribed by KJ

JI: If I was sitting down with Michael, I’d want to know where he was for 7 years, how he got that unbelievable scar, all the way across his body, there’s one fantastic scar that goes

 round him, & what his plan was, & that’s the challenge as an actor, particularly when you don’t know where the whole episode is, the whole Season is going on, ah, is to work out

 what his ambitions are.   Viewers don’t know much about what’s the secrets inside Michael’s head, & he’s got a bunch of em…Where he’s been, what he wants, what happened to

him, particularly this Season, he was really struggling just to ah, keep up, just to tread water, but, somewhere in his head there’s always a plan & that’s what makes, I think, any

 character as interesting on screen, as ah, where they think they’re going & you know, hopefully, the Viewers will be as interested as I am in finding out what the hell's happening next

 week….

  I think that the writers are not interested in, in re treading what they’ve seen on TV before, & I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to take part in Something which was, you know,

 procedural, & you know, redoing Episodes of 1970’s television. They are just, they, they are uncensored, we’re on a network that allows them to tell whatever story they want, in

 whatever way they want, & they tell adult, complicated stories, they’re not full of soaring string music & redemption at the end, people don’t hug & make up, & what’s great as an

 actor, you know, these are ongoing stories, they unfold  week after week, so it doesn’t, things don’t return to zero every week, & so you get to play the richness & complexity of

 someone that you spend 10 hours with….

 No, I think the thing about Michael is he ah, ah, mmm, because we spend so much time with Michael, we see him, in his intimate moments, we realize that he, like all of us, is just a

 big baby. You know, it doesn’t matter how many people he’s murdering, & how many people he’s facing down, you know, the heart of it, he wants his Mum to love him, & treat him

 properly & she was a hard woman, growing up, she was a hard Mother, he wants his Brother to look up to him, you know, & he wants  .., he’s looking like everyone else, for ah, ah

sense of Self & a sense of love, & I think that, what’s great about spending this many hours with characters on TV, is you can see what they do in their day job, what I do in

my day job is pretty repulsive, you see them, in their private moments as well, & you realize that, everybody’s after the same things in life….

  Well he has a tortuous relationship with his little brother, you know, Tommy’s  a big figure, when I went away, he wasn’t anything, you know, & now I come back & he’s a major figure

 in the city, & getting more & more important as the days go by, & it’s tough for me, I raised him, in many ways, & I kept him on the straight & narrow, & I, provided for him, kept the

 family together,  but I was the big brother, & the man of the household, & now I’m something very different, in many ways. Now I’m a plague on the household, & I know it.

  So, you know, I love him, & I’m aware that he possibly hates me, which doesn’t make me love him any less, but it makes things difficult.

 Well, I think that Blake & Henry, when they write the show, do something very unusual. I don’t know how they do it, it seems to me that they allow the characters to find a journey all on

 their own, there doesn’t seem to me like they’re overly,  schematic… wouldn’t it be great if this happened to these people.

  It’s like, it arrives out of their pen, you know, out of their computer & they go, wow, I didn’t know that was gonna happen.

  So, I defy anyone to predict what’s going to happen to any of the characters, 'cause I’ll tell you, we don’t know & I don’t think the writers know until they write it…

  Well, there’s no such thing as a bad guy. You know, I personally, I’ve never played anybody that I thought was just out & out bad. Everybody I’ve ever played, because that’s my job,

 thinks they’re doing the right thing. It’s not a question of whether people would root for me or root for Michael, because he’s bad, it’s a question of whether you understand me as a

human being. If you get what’s driving me, if you get what I’m after, what I’m upset about, then you’re having a human experience & that’s, that’s all that counts. We don’t have black &

 white characters…