Yahoo News Jason Isaacs was "pissed off" by Harry Potter audition
The Harry Potter universe we have all come to know and love could have been very different for the Death Eaters.
Jason Isaacs revealed to Digital Spy: "I didn't audition for Lucius, I auditioned for Gilderoy Lockhart. I was mightily pissed off when they asked me would I mind reading for a different part.
"I was about to go play Captain Hook [in 2003's Peter Pan] and didn't want to do two children's villains. I went back in and read then went home.
"I said to my agent, 'When they call, tell them no, thank you very much, I am about to go play Captain Hook'. He said, 'Just think about it over the weekend'. I said, 'No, I don't want to think about it – it's fun and lovely and flattering but I am not playing two children's villains!'"
Fortunately, Isaacs' family helped him change his mind.
"Over the weekend, everybody I knew called me – nieces, nephews, godchildren and then the parents," he recalled. "They all tried to persuade me to take the job – not because they cared about me but because they wanted to visit the set! So I took the job and thank god I did!"
Next up, Isaacs is playing a very different role – he's Soviet military commander Georgy Zhukov in Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin. It's a historical satire based on the French graphic novel and Isaacs describes the character as "a big swinging dick".
"I opened the script, read it and it was just funny as f**k," he said. "He's the guy that invented wearing 700 medals – he wanted everyone to know what he had done.
"When I went into my costume fitting I asked them to make me a chest. I wanted to have a big barrel chest and shoulders. They kept on adding padding, then my arms were too small so they padded them as well. I looked in the mirror and thought, 'Now I get him'."
While his Yorkshire take on Zhukov proves how versatile Isaacs is, many are undeniably still enamoured by his Lucius Malfoy, as the seemingly endless online fan fiction indicates.
He noted: "I've come across some of the less steamy stuff but I've occasionally let my eyes flicker across the fully obscene material. I then quickly scrub my eyes out with Dettol!"
The success of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens up a number of possibilities for different spin-offs, a prospect Isaacs is keen on.
"I think [JK Rowling] is way too good a storyteller to breathe into her stories with a beginning, middle and ending with a little side alley. If Jo called me and went, 'I want to do a Lucius Malfoy spin-off film', she wouldn't get to the middle of her sentence before I've said yes and left my house! But I am not holding my breath for that call."
The Death of Stalin is out in cinemas on October 20.
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