Q&A with actor Jason Isaacs

Jason Isaacs, 55, is known for roles such as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potterfilm series, Hap Percy in The OA and Jackson Brodie in the BBC’s Case Histories series.

What was your childhood or earliest ambition?

To win the football league for Liverpool and the World Cup for Brazil.

Private school or state school? University or straight into work?

A free, selective, direct-grant school because I was a smart-arse; tuition-fee-less Bristol University to study law because I liked an argument; and then the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, capped at £300 a year by the local education authority, because I’d realised that, while I wasn’t smart enough to argue that well, I’d always had an infinite capacity for being childish. Not one of those options exists now.

Who was or still is your mentor?

Everything important I’ve ever learnt about life I learnt from my wife, Emma.

How physically fit are you?

If I’m chasing a ball or there’s a camera involved, I can run, jump and punch till my lungs are on the outside. If not, I need help doing my flies up.

Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?

Luck. And not being a dick. Luck mostly.

How politically committed are you?

I was Politically committed with a large “P”, campaigning for Labour for decades. Now I despair on a party-political level but am still working for change in small “p” areas. Currently I’m involved with the People’s Vote campaign, which seems like the only possible way to give our hopeless representatives a clear mandate to do something.

What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess?

A six-pack. Four would do.

What’s your biggest extravagance?

Holidays. I’m away from my kids so much that if I’m around in any school holiday, I’m always angling to create mind-blowing memories by getting lost in the desert or falling off a mountain. My kids, of course, just want to stay at home and hang out with their friends.

In what place are you happiest?

Holding hands with Emma or on a tennis court. I’ve never tried the combo.

What ambitions do you still have?

To be in court the day Donald Trump is sentenced. Or the World Cup thing. Whichever comes first.

What drives you on?

A 10-year-old Prius and insomnia.

What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?

Emma and I have been together since October 31 1987 and still find new things to argue about every day. That must count for something. And I passed my driving test at 9am on my 17th birthday, which is probably best not explored in too much detail.

What do you find most irritating in other people?

Where do I start? A vocal uptick — it’s not a question, if you make it sound like one I’m not going to take you seriously and neither will anyone else. A presumption that it’s OK to be misogynist or racist or Islamophobic in front of me. The phrase “not a problem”: of course it’s not — it’s your job. Having seen the Potter films but not read the books. I could go on.

If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would he think?

“I must wear sunscreen.”

Which object that you’ve lost do you wish you still had?

I’m an early adopter of technology and had a very early Bluetooth earpiece that transmitted crystal-clear sound both ways. Nobody I ever spoke to had a clue I was on it. Now I have a panoply of amazingly sophisticated earphones and everyone I talk to asks if I have my head down a toilet.

What is the greatest challenge of our time?

Fighting the apathy that comes from feeling overwhelmed and powerless to effect change — on both a global and personal scale. Marching forward and doing something, whatever it is, is always the best and only answer.

Do you believe in an afterlife?

What are the hours?

If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score?

That way madness lies. I try to be grateful every day and never to compare myself to what I imagine it’s like being someone else or to what my life could or should have been. I fail, mostly, but that’s the game, isn’t it?

‘The OA’ Part II is available on Netflix now

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