Summary
- Jason Isaacs' portrayal of Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery season 1 was exceptional, showcasing his ability to play complex villains.
- Isaacs' performance as Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot was memorable, showcasing his talent for playing over-the-top villains.
- In the miniseries Archie, Isaacs captured the spirit of Hollywood legend Cary Grant with a nuanced and humanizing performance.
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The villainous Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery season 1 is just one of Jason Isaacs' many great acting roles in film and television. Best known for playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, Isaacs excels at playing complex and compelling villains. Isaacs has cited the cruelty and bullying he witnessed in childhood as preparation for the villainous roles he would later play as an actor. Originally, Jason Isaacs studied to become a lawyer, but his experiences as a member of Bristol University's acting society inspired him to make a career change.
Alongside Michelle Yeoh, Jason Isaacs was another starry addition to the cast of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, which lent a degree of legitimacy to Star Trek's hotly anticipated return to TV. Although Jason Isaacs only appeared in Discovery season 1, Captain Lorca's villainous arc ensured that he made a lasting impact on the Star Trek franchise. However, Lorca is just one of many compelling villain performances in both Jason Isaacs' native England and the Hollywood studio system.
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Jason Isaac's Captain Lorca was one of the best new characters on Star Trek: Discovery, but he only appeared in eleven episodes of the show.
10 The Colonel in Skeletons (2010)
Released July 2, 2010 (United Kingdom)
Skeletons won the prestigious Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Festival. The film centers on two exorcists, who reveal buried family secrets for a fee. Jason Isaacs played the exorcists' domineering boss, The Colonel, who is forced to intervene when Davis (Ed Gaughan) uses their technology to revisit his painful memories. Skeletons is an understated sci-fi movie with a melancholy tone, so Jason Isaacs' gruff and humorous performance steals every scene he's in. One standout moment is when the Colonel relishes "the filth" that could be unearthed in the royal assignment he promises to Davis and his associate Bennett (Andrew Buckley).
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9 Jackson Brodie in Case Histories (2011 - 2013)
Seasons 1 and 2 (6 episodes)
Jason Isaacs brought author Kate Atkinson's fictional detective Jackson Brodie to life in Case Histories, which aired between 2011 and 2013. A traumatized former soldier and police officer, private detective Jackson Brodie sought to bring peace and justice to the people of Edinburgh. The role of a psychologically scarred private detective could very easily have lapsed into cliché, but Kate Atkinson's stories and Jason Isaacs' performance ensured Jackson Brodie subverted expectations. Brodie was an honorable man who was never afraid to get a bloodied nose in pursuit of justice, and Jason Isaacs' rugged features helped to sell Brodie's battered and bruised everyman figure.
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Case Histories is available to stream now on Prime.
8 Col. William Tavington in The Patriot (2000)
Released June 27, 2000 (United States)
Jason Isaacs played the fictional villain Colonel William Tavington in Roland Emmerich's Civil War epic, The Patriot. Tavington was a sneering and sadistic villain whom Isaacs played with aplomb. The snarling, animal-like performance of Tavington, hair down, loading his musket has become a very gif-able image in the internet age. The Patriot is effectively an American remake of Braveheart, with Australian Mel Gibson playing another historical freedom fighter battling English oppression. As an Englishman, Isaacs rose to the challenge of playing an over-the-top villain that more than matched Gibson's machismo.
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Jason Isaacs and Mel Gibson later starred in the straight-to-video action thriller Agent Game in 2022.
7 Captain Michael D. Steele in Black Hawk Down (2001)
Released December 28, 2001 (United States)
It's no mean feat to stand out in a cast that includes Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, and Eric Bana, but Jason Isaacs pulls it off in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. Jason Isaacs played the real-life Captain Michael D. Steele in Scott's Oscar-winning dramatization of the Battle of Mogadishu. Captain Steele is one of many military men that Jason Isaacs has played in his career, and he's also one of his best. As with the men that served under the real Steele, Isaacs imitates the captain with great respect, while getting under the skin of the character.
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6 Michael Caffee in Brotherhood (2006 - 2008)
Seasons 1 to 3 (29 episodes)
Jason Isaac's breakthrough role on American TV was as Michael Caffee in Showtime's crime drama, Brotherhood. Returning home after several years away, Michael finds his brother engaged in local politics. Brotherhood excelled at exploring the moral ambiguities of both crime and politics, asking questions about whether hardened gangsters like Jason Isaacs' Michael are more honest than public-facing and slippery politicians like his brother Tommy Caffee (Jason Clarke). As an actor who specialized in playing villains, Jason Isaacs' nuanced performance of Michael was key to exploring Brotherhood's core question.
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Fionnula Flanagan, who had previously played an android reproduction of Data's mother in Star Trek: The Next Generation played Brotherhood's matriarch, Rose Caffee.
5 Cary Grant in Archie (2023)
TV miniseries (four episodes)
Jason Isaacs channeled the spirit of Hollywood legend Cary Grant in the Britbox Original miniseries Archie. As well as capturing the unmistakable voice of Grant, Jason Isaacs imbued the Hollywood icon with the weight of the star's traumatic childhood and difficult adult life. The Cary Grant TV show was executive-produced by his ex-wife Dyan Cannon, with the script adapted from her memoir Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant. While there will always be some debate over how truthful Archie is as a depiction of Cary and Dyan's marriage, Jason Isaacs' nuanced and humanizing performance of a cultural icon will surely be remembered for years to come.
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4 Field Marshal Zhukov in The Death of Stalin (2017)
Released October 20, 2017
Just as he did in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, Jason Isaacs stole the show from a hugely impressive cast in Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin. Isaacs played Field Marshal Zhukov in Death of Stalin, and managed to steal the show from the likes of Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor with his hilarious comic performance. Playing the Soviet military leader with a broad Yorkshire accent, Jason Isaacs tapped into Zhukov's humble background. The moment where Zhukov makes a flamboyant entrance at Stalin's funeral, throwing off his cloak and demanding a drink perfectly sets up his character and Isaacs' performance.
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3 Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter Franchise
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Jason Isaacs' best-known role of all time will likely be as the villainous Harry Potter character Lucius Malfoy. As the father of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), nemesis to Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Jason Isaacs brought a suitably serpentine energy to his sneering performance as the high-profile Slytherin. Lucius Malfoy cut an unforgettable silhouette with his long blonde wig and pewter cane, and it's to Jason Isaacs' credit that he embodied such a flamboyant villain with a degree of humanity. While it's hard to truly sympathize with the Malfoys, Jason Isaacs' cruelty as Lucius certainly aided Draco's redemption arc throughout the eight Harry Potter movies.
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Related
Lucius Malfoy went through quite the fall from grace in Harry Potter, and his traumatic decline got its start long before Voldemort's downfall.
2 Jay in Mass (2021)
Released January 30, 2021
Jason Isaacs won Best Supporting Actor at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards for his role as Jay in Fran Katz's powerful movie Mass. Isaacs played the grieving father of a child who was killed in a school shooting perpetrated by the son of Linda (Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney). Together with his wife Gail (Martha Plimpton), he agrees to meet the shooter's parents in an attempt to move past their grief. It's an extraordinary film that retains its empathy for the couples on both sides of the tragedy, while exploring the complexity of grief in the wake of an unimaginable tragedy.
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1 Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery
Season 1, episodes 3 to 13
Jason Isaacs was exceptional as Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery season 1. Relishing the chance to walk in the footsteps of the great Star Trek captains, Isaacs played Lorca with a level of charisma that was clearly influenced by William Shatner's Captain James T. Kirk. Lorca's charisma belied the dark side of the character, and as an actor best known for villainous performances, Jason Isaacs was excellent at toying with audience expectations of him as an actor. When the dark truth about Captain Lorca was revealed, Jason Isaacs was unleashed to play one of the most dangerous villains he's ever played.
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A perfect foil for Michelle Yeoh's Emperor Philippa Georgiou, Jason Isaacs' Lorca presented a unique dilemma for Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). So strong was Jason Isaacs' performance as Mirror Lorca in Discovery season 1 that the show has struggled to create a villain who comes close to overshadowing him. With the final season of Star Trek: Discovery premiering later in 2024, it looks likely that it will never have a better villain than Jason Isaacs' Gabriel Lorca.
All episodes of Star Trek: Discovery are streaming now on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.
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