jason isaacs and his unflinching inability to shut up

(relatable)

So everyone has already written about White Lotus. I accept that. I understand that. I even appreciate that. As a Carrie Coon enthusiast, I had to support, and I was obviously not surprised when it was her monologue on the last episode that made the seven (?) episodes worth watching. (Everyone should get on The Leftovers beat asap btw.)

It is a season of television that a lot of us watched, despite it not being—respectfully—very good, because we are so clearly desperate for the community fostered by a shared weekly experience. Even in the absence of the proverbial watercooler, we keep trying to find common objects of conversation.

And you know who's been making that easier? Jason Isaacs aka Lucius Malfoy aka Timothy Ratliff aka Man Who Has Received a Call from his Publicist Every Day for the Last Two Months.¹

His behavior is, if I may, inspiring. Here are just a few outtakes from recent interviews he's done to promote White Lotus and also, crucially, public relations as a general industry.

On his character's mid-season full-frontal moment, which had the Internet aflutter over whether or not he'd been wearing a prosthetic (he was):

A lot of people are debating it. It’s all over the internet. And it’s interesting because the best actress this year is Mikey Madison at the Oscars. And I don’t see anybody discussing her vulva, which was on [the screen] all the time. It’s interesting that there’s a double standard for men.

He later apologized for this comment, I imagine in no small part due to a few mandated lessons on female anatomy.

This kills me lol. (Photo: HBO)

On wearing a Duke shirt on the more-than-one scenes his character contemplated offing himself and/or his entire family via a variety of questionable methods, and the oft-correctly-maligned university being peeved:

I mean, I found the whole thing faintly amusing. I don’t like anyone getting upset about anything, but clearly, it was just someone fancying seeing their name online and wanting to go viral. Their real life alumni are such a rogue’s gallery, many of them, that the notion that one of the spiritually enlightened character[s] on television causes them any trouble is fanciful and ridiculous.

Getting called “fanciful and ridiculous” by a British man and losing to Houston … I just know that had to hurt. With my regards to any blue devils currently reading, it is unfortunately physically impossible for me to feel bad for the Durham institution in question, so it is not a hardship for me to tell you that for this comment, Isaacs has not apologized.

On the cast dynamic:

It was like a cross between summer camp and Lord of the Flies but in a gilded cage. It wasn’t a holiday. Some people got very close, there were friendships that were made and friendships that were lost. All the things you would imagine with a group of people unanchored from their home lives on the other side of the world, in the intense pressure cooker of the working environment with eye-melting heat and insects and late nights. They say in the show, “What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand,” but there’s an off-screen White Lotus as well, with fewer deaths but just as much drama.

And then, on the Internet's reaction to and interest in the above commentary, which as a reminder he volunteered:

First of all, it’s none of your business. I’m just saying it wasn’t a holiday, and partly I started saying that because people think we were on a seven-month holiday, and believe me, it felt like work a lot of the time. It was insanely hot and there’s all the normal social tensions you get anywhere.

He’s obviously having the time of his life.

I loooove the Hoisted by Your Own Petard genre of publicity. I so appreciate the frustration of having to mend a mess of one's own creation.

Indeed, here is a man who has repeatedly and meticulously directed his foot in the direction of his mouth becoming upset that people are actually paying attention to what he is saying on a, mind you, promotion tour. There are mics and cameras constantly on his face as he speaks to literal journalists and he's like, hold on, you're telling me that people were listening to and watching what I was saying?

Delusion is such a special thing to witness when it's being exhibited by someone else.

And the thing is, I can relate, because I, too, am perpetually besieged by the need to gossip and say the first thing that comes to mind, consequences and potential audiences be damned. This is an attitude that allows for the incomparable high of shrill, ephemeral freedom, quickly and inevitably followed by the low of deep, lasting regret the second I go home and turn to questioning every word I have ever let myself utter in company. The practice yields consistently Icarian results and yet ... and yet ... for a little while it does feel like you're flying.

Of course, I am not one of the public faces of one of the most media-driven TV series in recent history, just one of the things separating me and Jason Isaacs. Although maybe he, too, heartily resents J.K. Rowling, which would go a long way in bridging the many gaps between us.

They really thought a man who came up with this costuming and hair for himself would not be dramatic. Please. (Photo: Warner Brothers)

Unfortunately, and despite myself, I find myself charmed by Isaacs’ brand of honesty. We should've known he'd be like this when we discovered he was the one to bring Lucius Malfoy's dramatic persona to life, what with the most decadent blonde wig in film history being his idea.

I loved my long hair because it gave me character. The only way to keep it straight was to tilt my head back. I looked down my nose at people and I didn’t have to do any acting. (Esquire)

Are we surprised that this is the same man who now cannot, for the life of him, stop making admissions and worse, implications, about the White Lotus cast dynamic? I just know he reached a point where the heat in Thailand made him utterly intolerable to everyone around him. For that, we can only be thankful. It led to all this.

Like, I kinda need to get drinks with him, because I just know that all I'd need to do is sit across from him, say "Sooo....", take a little sip of my wine, and just let him fill the silence. The amount of gossip he'd let loose; I'm giddy just thinking about it. It would sustain me for months.

And I never do this, which is also what I told Milo Ventimiglia when I ran into him at Chelsea Market in 2017 and asked for my first and last celebrity photo, a request I immediately and also for the next month regretted, but: might I suggest that maybe Jason Isaacs host a podcast?

I know, I know, we don’t need another man with a podcast, but it wouldn't even need an agenda. Someone could just set him up in a studio, prepare a handful of open-ended questions or frankly just like, a word-association game, and see what happens. Maybe Las Culturistas or whatever the football brothers' podcast is called need a bit of friendly competition ... no? I’d love to know all the little things that annoy this man on a day-to-day basis. The birds were chirping too loudly. The sun, shining too brightly. The trees, shedding their autumn leaves too slowly.

All I know is, Mike White better have someone in mind to play this role for next season. Because let's be honest for a minute: for a show like White Lotus, the BTS drama is almost as central to its success as the actual plot.

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1. He was also great in The Death of Stalin (2017), a criminally underrated film that my family did not appreciate when I made them watch it during Covid. As always, heavy lies the head who bears the Taste.