How Jason Isaacs Really Felt About Playing Lucius Malfoy In The Harry Potter Movies

In "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" — the second movie in the Harry Potter film franchise — we first meet Lucius Malfoy, a rich and influential pureblood wizard played by Jason Isaacs. His first impression is, to put it lightly, not good. His son, Draco (Tom Felton), is Harry Potter's (Daniel Radcliffe) nemesis at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and when Lucius and Draco see Harry before the two young boys start their second year at the wizarding academy, they're both incredibly rude to Harry and the entire Weasley family. Isaacs reprises his role as Lucius several times throughout the "Harry Potter" franchise ... so how does he feel about his role?

During an appearance on BBC's "The One Show," per Variety, Isaacs said that he has slightly weird memories of the filmmaking experience, but also cherishes the fact that the "Harry Potter" movies are so important to so many people. "Even though I was in the films, when I've taken godchildren or nephews and nieces to the [studio tour] and the thing comes up and suddenly you're in the Great Hall, every time, I burst out in tears," Isaacs said on the show. "It's incredibly moving and overwhelming. There's some magic that happened in those stories." With that said, Isaacs did confess that making films that primarily involve green screens is just ... not that fun. As he explained:

"It's a terrible confession to make: they weren't that much fun to make. It's quite boring making big special effects films. However the pleasures all come afterwards. I see and meet people for whom their lives were changed by it, and still people reading it and sharing it with their children. Some people say their lives were saved by it and I believe it. Something happened, who knows why, when those ingredients came together and the soufflé rose and it created just love around the world and a sense of inclusion."

Okay, what's Lucius Malfoy's deal generally? Well, in "Chamber of Secrets," he does something pretty awful — in that he plants a diary that once belonged to his boss, the Dark Lord Voldemort (later played by Ralph Fiennes) on new Hogwarts student Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), which ultimately means that she gets possessed by Voldemort's spirit and unleashes a basilisk on the unsuspecting student body by opening the Chamber of Secrets itself. Once Harry figures this out, he confronts Lucius and tricks the guy into freeing his house-elf Dobby (voiced by Toby Jones), creating a permanent enmity between them.

Isaacs reprised the role very briefly in the fourth movie, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," when both the Malfoys and Weasleys (including Harry) attend the Quidditch World Cup, but Lucius returns in a big way in the fifth, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." After Voldemort lures Harry and his friends to the Ministry of Magic so that Harry can retrieve a prophecy about him and Voldemort, Lucius, embracing his status as a Death Eater once again, confronts the band of teenagers and fights them, ending up in Azkaban for his trouble. 

In both parts of the final story, "Deathly Hallows," Lucius is utterly disgraced, first forced to give up his home of Malfoy Manor for Voldemort to use as a home base and then stuck on Voldemort's losing side of the Battle of Hogwarts. After Voldemort is finally defeated, Lucius, his wife Narcissa (the late Helen McCrory), and Draco all just vanish into the ether for a while, largely because they're a bunch of cowards allergic to taking any responsibility.

These days, Jason Isaacs — who followed the "Harry Potter" movies with projects like "The Death of Stalin," "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris," "Star Trek: Discovery," and even brief stints on "Sex Education" and "The Great" — is playing a wealthy dad again, but he bears very similarity to Lucius Malfoy (except, I guess, that they're both evil). In the third season of Mike White's international anthology series "The White Lotus," Isaacs shows up as Timothy Ratliff, husband to the drawling, pill-popping Victoria (Parker Posey) and father to the odious Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), sanctimonious Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and innocent Lochlan (Sam Nivola), and right away, we get the sense that something's up with Timothy. He outright refuses to relinquish his cell phone when one of the spa managers asks him to turn it in for the week, and despite Piper's protestations, he keeps trying to reach colleagues back at home (and we get some hints that maybe his business dealings aren't all above board).

In an interview with Time Magazine about the third season of the series, Isaacs made it clear that he loves working on the show with Mike White, quipping, "Mike likes to write stories about people who look like they're leading lives of extraordinary privilege, but who are having the worst time of their life. No one wants to see rich people having a good time; he gives you exactly what you need—people whose lives are absolutely falling apart." Not only that, but he's a huge fan of White's writing style. "He's just a brilliant storyteller," Isaacs told interviewer Charlie Campbell. "The glorious thing about Mike's writing is that he leads you down a path when you suddenly realize that the action's all behind you, or to the left or right. So he sideswipes the audience." 

That's certainly true, and thanks to the lack of green screens, we can only hope Isaacs had a good time working on "The White Lotus." The series airs new episodes every Sunday on HBO and Max at 9 P.M. EST, and all of the "Harry Potter" movies are available to stream on Peacock.