'Potter' villain Jason Isaacs is 'loath to let go'

Jason Isaacs is not insisting that Lucius Malfoy, his character in the Harry Potter series, is the real star of the show.

He just can't believe the show is over.

"I'm so loath to let go of any of it. I'll talk about it until the sky falls in," says Isaacs of his experience as one of the chief villains of the series. "Next year when there isn't another one or when Daniel (Radcliffe, who plays Harry) gets married, maybe then I'll believe it's over."

He experienced the grand London premiere, "the scale of which was unimaginable, closing down Trafalgar Square and being treated like the second coming of The Beatles."

It's not an experience easily dispensed with. All the films are of such high quality that "everyone working on them adores the films, too," says Isaacs, 47, who stars in NBC series Awake, slotted for midseason. "We're all fans of the stories and the characters. It's our great privilege to take care of them and honor them."

One of the elements that most surprised Isaacs, a film and television veteran originally trained as a lawyer, was the atmosphere on the set.

"I don't feel I've ever been on a set where there is such a lack of cynicism," he says. "It was just unalloyed pleasure from start to finish."

He considers himself a kind of oddly proud father, his son being Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who developed a conscience along the course of the series.

"From my slightly warped perspective I think Draco is one of the biggest heroes of the story," Isaacs says. "You understood why he turned out to be this monstrous, toxic little pig, and then you watch him shake off the bonds of his childhood and the chains of aggression where he came from."

Isaacs' character, the prejudiced, haughty, long-blond-haired Death Eater, is no such hero: "He's a man so obsessed with status and holding onto his trappings of privilege that he'd actually sacrifice his family for it."

Watching characters grow and change was a particular delight.

"It's such a rare privilege to tell complicated stories to such a large audience," he says. "We pontificate about why they're successful. Truth is, nobody can say. They resonate in a fascinating alchemic way."