With

June 2000

Video provided by Melissa                Transcript by Luciana Malfoy                     Screencaps by Char

Craig Kilborn- A huge Fourth of July spectacular, listen to this guest list tonight, the man, the guy who puts the man in The Man Show, Jimmy Kimmel is here. *audience applauds* Uh, The Patriot opened over the weekend, a huge opening, everyone’s talking about it, Jason Isaacs is here tonight *audience applauds and howls*. Getting big, and performing some music, performing “American Music” is the name of the song, The Violent Femmes *audience applauds*. 

Craig Kilborn- Welcome back. What better way to celebrate the birth of our great nation than with my next guest. He plays the villainous British Colonel Tavington opposite Mel Gibson in the hit film, The Patriot.

(Shows the “Why Wait?” clip from the film)

Craig Kilborn- This is Jason Isaacs.

(JI comes out, they hug, aww, then Isaacs holds up the little British flag to the audience as he sits down).

Craig Kilborn- Oh, let’s display that prominently, yeah.

(JI stands it up in between the arms of the chair)

Jason Isaacs- I couldn’t remember what it looked like, I’m not sure. I think that’s right *looks at the front artwork*

Craig Kilborn- Yeah that looks good. That’s the fabric it’s on too.

Jason Isaacs- This is the original actually, yeah.

Craig Kilborn- The original. Umm, you stole the movie.

Jason Isaacs- We’re sitting very close, aren’t we? I can actually touch you *touches Kilborn on the arm*

Craig Kilborn- But you don’t have to *puts hands up defensively*

Jason Isaacs- I won’t *smiling*

Craig Kilborn- You don’t have to touch me. I’m joking *touches Isaacs on the arm*. Uh, the movie The Patriot, huge this past weekend.

*Jason Isaacs nodding*

Craig Kilborn- You steal the show, you’re so hateable in this movie.

*Jason Isaacs has the “oh stop” look on his face*

Jason Isaacs- You’re very sweet. You know I just try to win                    

*audience laughs*

Craig Kilborn- Ya know

Jason Isaacs- I’m just trying to win the war, that’s all. It’s strange being in America and people keep coming up going, ‘My God, I hate you’ *American accent*, which is anyway, weird. But, you know in England this guy was a hero. The guy I’m based on was a big hero and they had reporters on the set, *corrects himself* on the set, I mean they had reporters at the sites of the battles, and uh.

Craig Kilborn- Sure, it was a real battle, there wasn’t a movie, yeah it was a real battle.

Jason Isaacs- Yeah back in the day, and uh, in England he was a big hero. He was written about everyday. At the end of the war he wrote his memoirs, which were big best-sellers and it’s not that different from today.

Craig Kilborn- So that’s why you took the part, to be a hero, and now they can’t…stand you.

Jason Isaacs- It was horrifying. They promised me that in the end we would win, like we did in real life. And uh…

*Audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- For some reason they changed the ending. Typical Hollywood. And it’s got the Americans winning.

Craig Kilborn- Yeah *laughing*

Jason Isaacs- And it’s just bizarre.

Craig Kilborn- Yeah, that is bizarre. Umm, and Mel Gibson, the great American that he is *sarcastic tone*.

*Audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- *smiling and pointing at Kilborn* you obviously not had Mel on the show, cause Mel is an American. He went, he was born in New York and went to Australia when he was twelve. He stuck out, he was the yankee kid in Australia. He was glad to come home and anybody who says, who calls him Australian…

Craig Kilborn- Yeah, he’ll take a swing.

*audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- Yeah.

Craig Kilborn- How did you get this part? What was the audition process like for you?

Jason Isaacs- *very quietly* I slept with just about everybody involved.

Craig Kilborn- Did you?

*audience laughs, claps and howls*

Jason Isaacs- And then, because everybody does that. And then I uh, went on tape in England for a couple of minutes doing a scene.

Craig Kilborn- Oh so you do it on tape and they mail it out.

Jason Isaacs- It’s not the way it normally happens, yeah. Normally, the only way you get a job is you go in the room and you schmooze people and they’ve seen stuff that you’ve done before and whatever, but…when you go on tape in England it’s pretty much like buying a lottery ticket. It’s an excuse for all the actors to get together. No one ever gets a job from tape. And uh, they phoned up and they said they want to fly you out to meet you.

Craig Kilborn- Fly you from England to LA?

Jason Isaacs- To LA, they said they want to fly you out for a few days and meet you and I figured it was still just some way of getting someone very, very famous to do the job by pretending that you know… saying we’re flying this unknown guy out from England so you better sign. And uh, I arrived at the hotel and they rented me a Mercedes to drive *surprised look*

Craig Kilborn- Ooooo

Jason Isaacs- And it was at that point I realized they might be serious about giving me the job.

*audience laughs and Kilborn nods*

Craig Kilborn- And then did they give you the job then? Or what did they do?

Jason Isaacs- Well no, I went in the room and uh, there was Roland and Dean, the producer and Roland’s sister who’s a producer and Dean’s friend Bill who’s a producer…

Craig Kilborn- And you slept with both Roland and Dean?

Jason Isaacs- All of them at the same time.

*audience laughs*

Craig Kilborn- Okay, I don’t know how this works.

Jason Isaacs- There’s a tape somewhere, I don’t know where it is, but…

Craig Kilborn- It’s so foreign to me.

Jason Isaacs- I sat in the room and they said uh, Dean said *American accent*, ‘Listen I just want to tell you your tape was magnificent. We’re here to see if it was fake or if it was real, if you could do it again.’ And I said well that’s very nice, and then he started talking about how good the tape was, he went on for about twenty-five minutes, he said uh, ‘you know the way your eye twitched, man, the way your jaw kinda clenched, the way your hair rippled and your teeth moved’ and I was just sitting there sweating. I said look guys if we could just *hands do the time-out gesture* if I’m gonna have to read it for you in a minute could we just do it now because you’re making me nervous. And I read it and ya know, it was crap like I am in the film.

Craig Kilborn- Sure *laughing along with audience*

Jason Isaacs- And then they said, ‘Well that’s great, how’s your hotel?’ and I went ‘Sh-Should we do it again? I mean we could do it one more time.

Craig Kilborn- Oh you just read it and they kick you out?

Jason Isaacs- Yeah, go. Finished. And I said, ‘You know I’ve come six thousand miles, it’s an eleven hour flight, I’ll do it twice, I don’t mind.’ And they said, ‘No, that’s fine, listen you in town tomorrow? If we need to call you’ and I said, ‘Yeah!’ And they were very sweet, they called me almost straight away within about fifteen days.

*Audience laughs*

Craig Kilborn- *mouth drops open* Is that what they do?

Jason Isaacs- Apparently, they tell me now, you know we became very friendly, *starts to choke and covers his mouth* excuse me, I get very emotional when I talk about them *acts like he’s crying as the audience laughs*. They tell me now, uh, they decided as soon as I walked in the door but everybody at the studio and their wives and their dog handlers had to approve me first.

Craig Kilborn- Oh boy, so that’s gotta upset you a little bit, right?

Jason Isaacs- It’s fine, it’s just a job. It was an excuse to come over and see my friends for a week.

Craig Kilborn- Yeah, crash the Mercedes, maybe huh? That’s an idea.

Jason Isaacs- Did anybody tell you this? I crashed a car the other day.

Craig Kilborn- That’s right, cause you’re on the wrong side of the road, man.

Jason Isaacs- Everybody else *laughing*

Craig Kilborn- I have to ask you something though.

Jason Isaacs- Everybody else is on the wrong side of the road, I’m on the right side of the road.

Craig Kilborn- You mentioned the eye twitch, the twitch, which is, I wanna see. Can you get a close up of this cause I wanna see. This is what they’re talking about from the movie. Do the, do what you did in the movie.

*Camera zooms in on Isaacs’ face, he just stares into it and then nods slightly*

Jason Isaacs- See, that’s it. *starts laughing*

*audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- It’s very, very, very, very small *pinches his fingers together*

Craig Kilborn- *laughing* Can you, can you do it or not?

Jason Isaacs- That was it.

Craig Kilborn- I didn’t see it.

Jason Isaacs- You’ll see it in dailies.

Craig Kilborn- I didn’t see.

Jason Isaacs- This is what you’ll see. You go on the set, the director comes up to you…

Craig Kilborn- Listen, we flew you here, so…

*Audience laughs*

*Jason Isaacs lets out a big sigh, leans back in his chair and his one eye suddenly starts twitching when the camera zooms in again*

Craig Kilborn- Oh there it is! Do it, do it, I missed it, do it again! *puts his hand on the back of Isaacs’ neck*

Jason Isaacs- You got good hands        .

*The audience and Kilborn laugh and he removes his hand*

Jason Isaacs- Haha, ah? *arches his eyebrows, smiles and does the eye twitch again*

Craig Kilborn- Yeah, that’s evil.

*audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- Actually I’ve got a little bit of something in there *rubs corner of eye* there we go.

Craig Kilborn- That’s evil. Now I can, I can do something. Can I show you?

Jason Isaacs- Go on. *nods and sits up straight*

Craig Kilborn- Okay. See if you can see what moves. It’s very subtle. *camera zooms in on Kilborn and he flares his nostrils*

*Isaacs and the audience laughs*

Jason Isaacs- That’s good.

Craig Kilborn- Thank you. We got a buddy over here, Matt. *points out into audience* Matt, can you do anything with your face, can you make anything move or twitch?

*camera zooms in on Matt*

Matt- Yeah I can, Craig. *looks at the camera cross-eyed*

Craig Kilborn- Oh yeah. That’s good. Hey Matty, don’t keep doing it. Matt, it’s gonna stay that way.

Matt- I’m actually stuck, Craig.

*Craig Kilborn stands up*

Craig Kilborn- Stay right there, I’ll be right back. *running past Isaacs*

Jason Isaacs- I’ll be here.

Craig Kilborn- This is embarrassing. Are you okay buddy? *walks over to Matt, who is still cross-eyed*

Matt- Yeah, it’s just I can’t see.

Craig Kilborn- Okay, wait a second. *Grabs Matt’s face and smacks him on the side of the head three times* There you go.

Matt- There you go, thank you.

*audience claps as Kilborn runs back onstage*

Craig Kilborn- Sorry about that *touches Isaacs shoulder as he passes* Alright, you’re gonna stick around right? You’re gonna be able to play the game, right?

Jason Isaacs- Oh, I don’t know what the rules are, but I hope to lose. Yeah.

Craig Kilborn- Stay with us, Yambo when we come back.

*commercial break*

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