The serendipitous rise of the villainous Captain Hook
By Luaine Lee
Knight Ridder News Service
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — When actor Jason Isaacs was growing up in Liverpool, he felt like an outcast.
Jasin Boland
"It felt like I was waiting to be found out always," he says, sinking into a green chenille chair in a hotel here.
Jason Isaacs — seen here as Captain Hook aboard the Jolly Roger, with sidekick Smee (Richard Briers, right) in "Peter Pan" — has made career marks as memorable cinematic villains.
"I had conversations going on in my head and layers of filtering that other people didn't have, and that I don't have when I'm acting. It felt like there was a committee meeting taking place between my ears."
That committee finally came up with a plan, though Isaacs had to try sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll before it did.
Now you couldn't find a better-adjusted guy. As the terrifying Capt. Hook in "Peter Pan," which opened Christmas Day, Isaacs is doing what comes naturally.
Though he co-starred in movies such as "Black Hawk Down," "The Tuxedo," and "Windtalkers," it's his menacing villains we remember. His star turn as the vile Col. Tavington in "The Patriot" first brought Hollywood to his door.
Random fortune got him into acting. He was pretty much a goof-off in school studying law but engrossed in doing plays. He liked the camaraderie among the players, he says.
"I didn't have to worry about who I was going out with that night, would anyone turn up? Would I have to phone someone else? There was somewhere I had to go with people with whom I'd have very intense discussions and emotional interaction with and always a ready supply of people to sleep with, and when it came time to leave university, some of these people were applying to drama school.
"I thought that was an act of spectacular arrogance because — though we'd been playing at it as amateurs — the idea that we could then go into the world of professional acting was laughable to me. They were obviously cut from some different cloth. These people had some magic about them that we didn't have. But it was cheap. It was a day out in London and only 10 pounds to audition for London drama schools. I thought, 'Why not?' Never for a second did I entertain the notion that that's what I would do for the rest of my life."
He went to the Central Drama School, but didn't audition. "And the lady said, 'We'd very much like to offer you a place in September.' I stood there dumbstruck. She said, 'You do want the place, don't you, because you understand these places are heavily oversubscribed?' I said, 'Of course, I'd love to come.' ... (It was) because I'm English and hate a scene and didn't want to be embarrassed. I have a very poor memory but instances are just seared in my mind. I remember walking down the street in London where the school is thinking, 'I may have just changed the course of my whole life because I'm too embarrassed to create a scene.' "
With his longtime partner, documentarian Emma Hewitt, Isaacs now has a 20-month-old daughter.
"We shot this film ('Peter Pan') in Australia, and it's a magnificent country. We lived on the beach on the Gold Coast. I think the film's fantastic because the story's been fantastic for 100 years. We've just done it justice. It's a great adventure, love story, romance.
"But when I think about 'Peter Pan,' what I really think about is I got to spend a year alone with my partner and baby on the beach somewhere. The film was fun and great. But I never for a second took it for granted. So when we go back to our nasty, dark, wet, urban sprawl that I live in in London, the memory is fresh and real for me."
