The Treat: Jason Isaacs

0:00Actor Jason Isaacs has kept our attention riveted on the big screen and the small, including performances such as his work on season three of HBO's The White Lotus, for which he just got a Golden Globe nomination. It's The Treat. I'm Elvis Mitchell, and it's a role he had in a hit play that inspired and scared him. My name is Jason Isaacs, and this is The Treat.

0:34and I think I'm going to talk about a piece of art or something that has inspired me in my work I guess in my work and not in my life with a heavy heart I'm going to say it's Angels in America which is a play I did right at the beginning of my career because it set the bar impossibly high for what I wanted to aim at forever which is something that made you laugh and made you cry and made you think and made you change the way you behaved with the world outside.

1:07We did this play when AIDS was cutting a swathe through society, when Reagan was in and refusing to say the word and when the politics of the play was affecting people's personal lives. and the audience that saw it at the National Theatre in England, I think many of them thought they would come to see a musical. Look at the title, Angels in America. They were subscription, you know, for the season and it was two three-and-a-half-hour plays. Friends of my family or my parents said, well, I'll just see one. I said, don't worry, I'll buy you tickets for two. It's sold out. If you don't want to see the second one, it's fine.

1:37They're not the target audience. Everybody stayed.

1:47Everybody thought about it. Years later, people want to talk about not it was good or the thing was great. I don't like being in things where people talk about how good the thing was. I like it when things happen like happened with angels. They talk about how it changed their relationship with their brother-in-law or how they voted differently or how they campaigned differently or how they just thought differently about how they saw the news. Are you a homosexual? Oh, is it that obvious? Yes, I am. What's it to you? Would you say you were a typical homosexual me? Oh, I'm Stereotypical what you mean like am I a hairdresser?

2:28Are you a hairdresser? Well, it would be your lucky day if I was And I'm sitting in the wings might near the end of the show and It ran for a year But it must have been like ten months in and the two older actors Walked by me and they said you're right darling you look a bit down in the dumps and I said you know I was just thinking nothing will touch this whatever I do professionally the rest of my life nothing will ever touch what this does to an audience and what it's done to all of us and instead of saying what I would say now to a young actor which is don't be silly you love you just starting out they said yeah we were just saying in the dressing room how glad we are it's coming to the end of our careers and um so I want to say right now to Harry and Susan thank you for saying that, but you're right.

3:09Go on, not Roy Cohn, you are a drug fiend. Roy Marcus Cohn, you are a... Go on, Henry, it starts with an H. I'm not going to... Put an H, Henry, and it isn't hemophilia. Come on! No, sir! Say, Roy Cohn, you are a homosexual, and I will proceed systematically to destroy your reputation and your practice and your career in New York State, Henry, which you know I can do. Salman Rushdie came to see the play when there was a fatwa on him. I went out in the first scene with Stephen Lane and we came off in the wings and I went, Jesus, do you see who was in the third row? We were scared because if he stayed for the whole thing, someone could have told someone else they could have blown up the theatre.

3:53And he had two special branch police officers because he was guarded at the time, either side of him. They did not want to come and see a play with a lot of gay sex in it. They were looked anywhere else but the stage. They both had mustaches that were giveaways. Sensible shoes, and they did not want to look at the stage. And by the end, they were standing and cheering and crying with everybody else. And I like to think we changed them too.

4:27New Golden Globe nominee Jason Isaacs on the reward of acting in a stage production of Tony Kushner's landmark two-night play, Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia. The Treat is produced by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. You'll find previous editions at the archive, kcrw.com slash the treat. And while you're there, please consider making a donation to KCRW during our winter fun drive. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's the treat.