Jason Isaacs
Appearances
Fresh Air
'Nickel Boys' Director RaMell Ross Makes The Camera 'An Organ'
Hi. The Radcliffe family, yes? That's us. How was your flight? Long layover in Doha, but it's all forgotten now.
Fresh Air
'Nickel Boys' Director RaMell Ross Makes The Camera 'An Organ'
How did you find us, may I ask? Well, Piper here is a senior, thank you, at Chapel Hill.
Fresh Air
'Nickel Boys' Director RaMell Ross Makes The Camera 'An Organ'
and she's a religious studies major, so she's writing her thesis on, well, what's your thesis on, Pop? Well, it's on Buddhism, and there's a monk at a monastery near here. Anyway, she wants to interview him. So we made a family road trip.
Pivot
Elon's First Cabinet Meeting, Trump's Gold Card, and Bezos' WaPo Revamp
I was in Koh Samui. You sent me your first recordings. I listened to it. I almost shit my pants because I was like...
Pivot
Elon's First Cabinet Meeting, Trump's Gold Card, and Bezos' WaPo Revamp
This sucks. I don't know if it's going to fly. And I think I had, then I heard you mention it on, on, I think on pivot. And so I was extra nervous that I was going to somehow disappoint you. I did not want to disappoint you. And so I called, I think I got, maybe I was back in LA or might've been still in Thailand.
Pivot
Elon's First Cabinet Meeting, Trump's Gold Card, and Bezos' WaPo Revamp
And then I was like, I had the smart idea of sending Jason Isaacs over to your apartment. Just, you know, I was like, maybe Jason could help you read with you. And I remember I was like very anxious. I was like, Jason, call me as soon as you get out of there. Jason called me and he goes, we did an hour of takes. It could be all dog shit. Maybe there's something in there.
Pivot
Elon's First Cabinet Meeting, Trump's Gold Card, and Bezos' WaPo Revamp
And I have to say, genuinely, you are great in the show. In those hour of recordings, we found gold. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a long Hollywood career for you.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Well, I'm immediately offended by using the word archetype there because Mike White is far too nuanced A sophisticated writer. You're absolutely right. He introduces people you think are archetypes, and then he adds or strips off layers and layers, and you go, wait, I thought I knew this person who they were, and they've become richer.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Well, for me, because I'm English, I started with a voice. I knew of some Durham, North Carolina, so I got some people from North Carolina until I honed it down to one particular person whose voice I wanted to do and broke it down phonetically. So there was the voice. But also, he's what Tom Wolfe called a big swinging dick. It's incredibly important to him how other people see him.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Not that he's anxious about it, because it goes well for him. He has a huge status within his family and in his community back home. So you need to build that first before Mike starts to puncture it. The Zeppelin starts to leak very, very slowly, and then it deflates very quickly with a couple of phone calls. You look at the function of the story. What kind of person would create Saxon as a son?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
and just come in dripping with power and privilege and entitlement and a total lack of doubt, and then allow the audience, at least, certainly not me, to enjoy the journey as all the things that he thinks he is are taken away. And this is, it's White Lotus in Thailand, and Mike's been explicit that it's a search for identity. What is the self?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
And I think Tim probably faces it more than anybody because everything that he is is threatened to be taken away and everything that his family think they are too. So the pressure builds to a hideous climax.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
To create this character. My catastrophic failures on the screen, they don't really match up. Yeah, the great man smiling. Possibly people who know me well might see what I have in common. I don't think I have any comments here. I think I'm a bit of a blank slate as a human being. I'm not quite sure. I have a very amorphous personality.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I tend to adopt the accent of whoever I'm talking to after a short while. I just jumped into the world that Mike created, and the bits seem to fill themselves in. It's a bit like, you know, you have an outline and you fill up from the inside or outside or the jigsaw slowly fills itself. What really helps is the other actors.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
So when you're looking in other people's eyes and they seem to be your children, this person seems to be your wife. And luckily, thank God, we're one of the shows that's still on a real location before AI makes it all happen in a computer. So anything that helps you trick your imagination
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
is of use because that's what acting is just imagining you or someone else in another situation but 99.9 of it is mike's ability to dream up full and human worlds i think well let me ask a different way then is it was it then fun different answer josh
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
That's a very perceptive question because he's really unhappy. I mean, I experienced as much as I could. I know it's pretend acting, but when you're very, very angry, you come away with your cells, you know, carry the anger. If you're crying all day, which I've done films with, kids get killed and stuff. I did a film called Mass, which was all about losing a son and hanging onto the anger.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
You know, we cried for weeks. It was incredibly stressful being him. And yes, you're right. I love that. All actors love that. We like vicarious, extreme experiences. So I get to, you know, I've been in war numbers of times, but they're not real bullets. So as close as I ever want to get, I do. And this is as close as I ever want to get to my world falling apart and being broken. Yes, it is fun.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
The more extreme, the more fun. Although I shat myself, to be honest, when I read the script to start with, I thought, oh, wait, I've got to raise my game, and I've got to, can I pull that scene off? Mike's written something really extreme, and I've got to make it truthful and emotional, and those things are demanding. I mean, you can't always get there, but it did feel like it was scary biscuits.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Two things, one, having some big acting, and two, having to hide a secret for many episodes without words and in ways that aren't boring. That was also a challenge.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
And at least- Everyone being a dagger to the soul for me, every single, every time someone thinks or says that, I know, I mean, there is a cliff coming at me at a million miles an hour and there's no way to avoid it. And so I had that always in mind. And as an actor, what you want is secrets. You're desperate to have secrets. To say one thing and mean it is really nothing and feels like nothing.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
But all the time that the dialogue's going on around me and all the stuff that he's created and structured on purpose is the stuff to make my world worse. All he does is tighten the vice on my heart. And I don't know how much the audience get of it. I was trying to feel it and think it, and I hope that they sense it in me, because I'm not talking very much.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Yeah, I mean, the writing's too complex for it to be either one of those things or the other. It's both. At the same time, it's thinking, how am I going to cut? What am I going to do? I cannot imagine a life without it. I'd equate it to someone going into rehab or going to AA or something. Like, I cannot imagine a life without this, but I have to, or I'd rather die.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
And so there's people who do go into recovery, the people who go decide they want to live. Or people who are forced by a court under DUI to go to AA. They don't want to be there. They get there and they go, yeah, I could... So he's not one of those people who's gone to Thailand and gone for a Buddhist meditation retreat and thinks, you know what, I should reevaluate. He's got no choice.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
He's going to have nothing. The family have nothing. So I don't think he's spending much time thinking, you know what, maybe I should have made some different choices and I'll be okay. I think he's forced, like the walls closing in on him, and forced to think, can I live without this? Can my children live it?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Can any of my children or my wife survive if they had to go and get a job in a shop and rent an apartment or live in public housing? And realizing with horror that none of them are equipped for any of those things. So yes, he's reevaluating, but it's at gunpoint. So it's not the same kind of reevaluation that people are doing around him.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Sure, he does, because he's not had to question it. He's not had to question any of those things. Things came easy to him. He was handed money. He made it into more money. He was handed status. He comes from blue blood. He probably traced his family back to the Mayflower. No, no, I think that he's probably a sensualist in many ways. I think he had all kinds of pleasure.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I don't know if he was getting pleasure from his marriage. It doesn't seem like that's going particularly well, but he gets pleasure from power and status and probably from golf and high adrenaline, gets endorphin released from pushing himself physically all the time and winning. That's why Saxon has so grotesquely misinterpreted the point of life, which is winning.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Saxon tries to dominate women everywhere and dominate his brother because he actually has no power because he works for his dad. He's watched his dad be a winner all the time. So yeah, I think he takes tremendous sensual pleasure from food and drink. He's a bit of a fat cat. I put a bunch of weight on in the show and for the show, and I was comfortable doing that.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I wanted him to be a bit of a kind of chunky fat cat. He goes to the gym a lot, but he also eats a lot and drinks a lot of red wine and all the rest of it. He's got an ample wine cellar, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I think he indulges in everything, left, right, and center. There's a Henry VIII quality to him. Because the more you do that, the more there is to take away.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
No, I think money makes money. You don't have to be illegal, but you do not want to pay any tax. The more rich you get, the less you want to pay tax. I think he is comfortable to get away with whatever he can get away with. I think he's a Darwinist in finance. What you can do, you should do.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
He's up for any deal that he can get away with. So yeah, he's done it before. He doesn't make his money out of being crooked. He doesn't have to. He has so much money most of the time that the deals are good. But if the deal happens to break whatever law is there, if no one's going to catch him, that's fine too.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
That's what I was like.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
You never know. I don't think it's nearly... Look, you know, it's not... My husband's been operating a Ponzi scheme or something. He's not a crook. He's just got tons of money. He probably... I mean, this is a hedge fund with his own money and other wealthy people around him. And sometimes there you can avoid tax and move things around. And that's what everybody in that world does.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
And they don't think twice about it. And so this was just another side deal for someone. So he's not, you know, is he a criminal? Yes, he's absolutely a criminal, because he doesn't, has no regard for laws that he can't be caught by. That's why he's so shocked. I played a number of criminals in my life and met the people I played a couple of times, and they go stupid if people go to prison.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I've heard more than one person say, only really stupid people get caught. Most of us get away with everything all the time. And that's, I think he feels really stupid that he got caught.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Oh, it's Piper by far.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
He's disappointed by both of his sons in so many ways. Right. And he absolutely worships Piper. I mean, probably worships him in all the wrong ways and places her on a pedestal. And even though his world's falling apart so he could care less, she's going to have to get a job somewhere folding T-shirts, you know?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
So all this talk about what they're going to do in the future and what she's going to do is irrelevant if he doesn't sort this situation out and he's got no solution for it. But yeah, no, it's his daughter always.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Oh, no. No, no. It doesn't matter what she says. I want to be an astronaut. I want to score the winning goal in the World Cup. None of these things are going to happen. They're going to get home. They have no house. They have no car. She has no phone. They will have no money of any kind. How's she even going to fly to Thailand?
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
No, no. So the whole thing is some bizarre farce playing out in front of him.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
It's all over, basically. So there is no way out of this. You're going to go to prison.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Is he going to wait for the end of the week? He doesn't know. His brain is in a blender. You know, he's in free fall. But there's a gun, and you can end it quickly. And so whether he's going to do it right there in the guard station, whether he's going to write a note, whether he's going to do it late at night, the next day, at the end of the week, you know, he's not that organized at that point.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
But he knows that there's a way out. And before he saw the gun, there was no way out.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I could talk about it forever.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
Then maybe you didn't bring them. You're always losing things.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
I've heard someone say that anyone who moves to Thailand is either looking for something or hiding from something.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 4: “Hide or Seek” with Jason Isaacs and Sarah Catherine Hook
So what about you? Are you hiding or are you seeking? I'm just on vacation with my family. But you never know.