The virtues of Jason Isaacs

It’s noon on a particularly grey day in London when Jason Isaacs, face awash with the last traces of sleep, appears on my computer screen in what must be early-morning hours for the actor. “I’ve quite literally just woken up,” he admits. “I missed my first interview because I was still asleep. So you’re really getting the
raw, unfiltered me here.” He begins fishing around the desk of what appears to be his hotel room, trying to make a cup of tea. “I take teabags with me all over the world,” he continues. “Builder’s tea. I have it with oat milk because I’m an incredibly annoying and occasionally lapsing vegan.”

Isaacs isn’t exaggerating when he says “all over the world” — this week marks the release of the first episode of The White Lotus series three, in which he plays Timothy Ratliff, a wealthy businessman (in an undisclosed industry), father of three and husband to a prescription-drug-addicted Victoria (Parker Posey) from Durham, North Carolina. And, this week alone, he has travelled to Los Angeles, Bangkok and Berlin to promote the show’s release — something he describes as “fantastical”. “In Bangkok they threw something as big as any film premiere I’ve ever been to,” he says, “with parties and outdoor stages and crowds. I didn’t know this sort of television premiere happened.”

A cup of tea magically appears and the conversation takes us back in time to the
creation of The White Lotus. Despite being a seasoned actor — whose iconic roles include the likes of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and Cary Grant in Archie — taking part in the show was a decidedly new experience for 61-year-old Isaacs. “It was an extraordinarily pressured and intense time, being together [in Thailand] for seven months, living together, hand in pocket.” He pauses. “Hand in pocket? I think that’s the expression.” A self-proclaimed tennis lover, he admits that he’s trying to contain himself, rather than rely on a steadfast kit of tennis metaphors to describe his time in Thailand. “I was in some incredibly luxurious hotels for the months doing White Lotus, and the more luxurious they are, the more the staff make you feel like a modern-day god,” he says. “In Thailand particularly, where there’s such a massive wealth disparity, I was always aware of other people. If you only stayed inside a five-star resort, as some people did, you would think you were getting some sense of what it’s like to be Thai by interacting with the staff. But that’s not what the real world is like.”

One thing that’s apparent from speaking with Isaacs, if only for a few minutes, is his level of empathy for others. The beauty, he says, of being in one location for so long was the ability to work with NGOs and really get a feel for life in a different country so far removed from one’s own. “I saw people that were having an extremely hard time, scraping by to get food and water. And still the nature of their interaction was gentle and rooted in kindness. We went out a long way from tourist land, speaking to people who had nothing to benefit from being nice to us, but it was the same. There’s something incredibly lovely in these social mores that are to do with elevating the person you’re talking to and giving them status.” Isaacs calls this the “beauty of peeking behind the curtain” — getting to know other peoples and cultures while retaining an element that remains
partly shrouded in mystery.

This excerpt was taken from HUNGER Issue 34: Fight Back. Stay tuned for the full story.