JASON ISAACS

Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me.

I damaged my Achilles tendon, so I can't run.

I'm at the beginning of it. I'm Elektra's last job before the story kicks off.

There is nothing nicer than playing someone who is cooler, tougher, more virtuous and sexier than yourself and thinking, 'I can be anyone.'

I can't tell you too much about it because I'm not even meant to tell you that I'm in it. In fact, I might never work again now that I've been talking to you. I'm not in it for very long, let's put it that way.

I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives. And I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am.

I went to university and I was a bit out of my depth, socially.

I think this show I'm going to do,' Awake,' if it's done well, will not only be provocative and entertaining, but help people. I want to do that.

I got into shape because I took kick-boxing lessons every day to prepare for a fight scene with Taylor Lautner. I really wanted to lie down and eat Chinese food, but I kick-boxed every morning and ran. If someone was filming you with your kit off, you'd do the same thing.

Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on stage?

Well, he's not going to get any nicer. He's a genocidal racist maniac. He's one of these people who thinks the world was a great place when Voldemort ruled the world. He's particularly offended by mixed-blood Mudbloods, the product of wizards and humans. So I hope he goes into therapy.

I could release myself into acting in a way that I was not released socially.

God, I hate interviews with actors pouncing on. Who wants to know about their lives? I don't want to know about Al Pacino's life.

Acting is a really simple job - it's just hard to do. You just have to be that person with their background in that situation. That's all it is. My kids do it all the time when they're dressing up and playing games.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

I think I was probably always a liar; I just get paid for it now.

I get some of the nicest fan mail you could imagine. Also when I'm up for an award, my fans all vote online and then they'll boast to each other about how many thousands of times they've clicked my name. Their thumbs must be bleeding!

When I came back from filming 'Abduction', I told my agent: I'm staying in London now. If it takes doing children's theater from the back of a van in Kilburn, that's OK. I need to be with my family. My job is to keep the family together and provide for them.

It's just really, really beautiful. Each scene is one long 15 minute take without cutting. My scene is with Robin Wright-Penn so I'm pretty excited about that.

It seems a bit weird to call someone your girlfriend when you have a child.

I am not a sex symbol.

I don't know if it's a romantic comedy but I'm in the beginning of the first of the season of 'The West Wing.' We shot it last year. I don't know. If anyone asks me to be in one, I'll jump on it.

I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives.

When I started acting, I thought everything should be issue-based and that there should be a helpline at the end of every program.

I would love to tell you I've found the secret to eternal youth. I go to the gym and avoid too many chips. I love to eat, hate to work out, but if you can't count all your ribs from a distance you're considered obese.