Being Lucius
Malfoy in the wizard film franchise has some
perks for Isaacs but no one has a magic wand for
instant celebrity. Despite consistent employment
since his film debut in The Tall Guy in 1989 and
a major role in Lynda La Plante's landmark 1992
TV series Civvies, his career has reached a new
peak because, in one of those happy coincidences
of scheduling, Isaacs can be found headlining in
three acclaimed TV dramas at once.
The
six-part BBC conspiracy thriller The State
Within, in which he plays the besieged British
Ambassador to Washington DC, is reaching a
climax. His stylish American gangster series
Brotherhood which earned him rave reviews in the
US, sees his face all over cable channel FX and
thousands of billboards. But the work he is most
proud of is the hour-long Scars, a violent,
near-monologue of a film about a London hard nut
admitting to his brutal past, which gets its
terrestrial airing on Tuesday.
'Scars is
the most overwhelming experience I've ever had,'
he says. 'My first instinct was not to do the
job - I'd been playing a tough gangster in
America for six months and should have been
coming home to do something lovely in a frock
coat. In fact my wife told me not to get
involved. But if you're a proper actor, you
can't turn down something like this.'
Scars is
based on real-life interviews conducted by the
Irish documentary-maker Leo Regan, and it is a
curious blend of dramatic monologue and
fly-on-the-wall documentary. Isaacs is Chris,
now married and a proud father, who feels the
need to confess in gruesome detail to a former
life of crime, prison and violence. 'I don't
ever want to know who the real Chris is,' says
Isaacs from his west London home, after putting
to bed his two children, Lilly, four-and-a-half,
and 15-month-old Ruby. 'Ever since I read it,
I've been haunted by the script, and I imagine
this sort of violence simmering on every street
corner or pub in the city. My gut instinct is to
pack up and take the kids to a quiet village.
'There's
so much we had to cut because the lawyers were
worried the stories might identify him, at least
to some people, such as his victims or his old
crew. All I know is, he's real and every word is
his. I didn't change a syllable, and as an actor
it was a frightening character to retreat into.'
Despite a
history of violent roles, Isaacs is a genial
chap with a wry sense of humour about his work -
for him, playing the Dark Lord Malfoy offers
light relief. 'I spent two weeks having a wand
fight with Helena Bonham Carter and Gary Oldman,'
he says having just completed filming on the
fifth Harry Potter. 'Potter is a well-oiled
machine now, whichever director is in charge,
although it's a slow process working with all
those special effects. But it's such a laugh -
five weeks hanging out with Oldman and Maggie
Smith and Michael Gambon, who's a right
mischievous devil.'
Off screen
this week, Isaacs is keeping similarly starry
company on the jury of the British Independent
Film Awards, joining Anna Friel, Damian Lewis
and Alan Cumming. 'We all manage to combine
American jobs with loads of work here,' he says.
'When I came out of drama school in the
Eighties, there wasn't any work in the UK,
basically. There was no film industry. Now we've
got studio films, an independent sector and
still manage to make great television. It's hard
to believe it's the same country.'
·
Scars is on Tuesday, C4 at 11.30pm