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Tough Guy?

Jewish actor Jason Isaacs, a self-described "wimp"
from England, plays the evil Col. Tavington in
"The Patriot," this summer's Revolutionary War
epic starring Mel Gibson.

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Iglir hen Jason Isaacs went in
to audition for the
Royal National Theatre's
production of Tony
Kushner's Angels in America, he knew
exactly what role he wanted. He insist-
ed upon portraying the anxiety-ridden
character of Louis, who is somewhat
based on the life of the Jewish, gay
playwright.
The London producers raised eye-
brows. They had a slightly larger role
in mind for Isaacs, a rising British
stage and screen actor. But the thespi-
an wasn't interested.
"Look, I play all these tough guys
and thugs and strong, complex charac-
ters," he told the producers. "In real
life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish
mess. Can't I for once play that
onstage?"
Isaacs earned stellar reviews as
Louis, but he remains best known as
an elegant brand of villain. He was
Kurt Russell's futuristic foil in Soldier,
Dennis Quaid's nemesis in
Dragonheart; a sadistic ex-IRA terrorist
in Divorcing Jack; a psychopathic sol-
dier in the controversial BBC minis-
eries Civvies.
Currently, he is all over the screen
in the Hollywood Revolutionary War
epic The Patriot, killing children in
front of their parents, burning vil-
lagers alive in their churches and blud-
geoning Mel Gibson in gruesome
hand-to-hand combat.
His redcoat Col. Tavington is so
nasty, in fact, the British press saw red:
A furious June 14 article in London's
Express, headlined "Hollywood's Racist
Lies About Britain," railed against
Tavington and other English charac-
ters as "cowardly, evil [and] sadistic,"
according to Entertainment Weekly.
The New York Times put it differ-
ently. "Screen evil may not have

Naomi Pfefferman is entertainment

editor at the Jewish Journal of Greater
Los Angeles.

reached quite such well-spoken pro-
portions since Ralph Fiennes delivered
his career-making performance in the
1993 film Schindler's List," the
reporter suggested of Isaacs.
During an interview, the actor, in
his late 30s, was hardly villainous.
Witty, chatty and self-deprecating, he
characterized himself as not a "tough
guy" but a "total wimp."
"I'm a terrible coward, and I've
been hit all the time, but I've never hit
anyone," he says, his chatty tone turn-
ing serious. "So I think these extreme
parts that I play offer some kind of
therapy, some catharsis for me. Maybe
one of the reasons I do them well-ish
is because I was always the bullied,
never the bully."
The actor pauses, then laughs.
"They are my revenge."
Watching Isaacs in The Patriot,
swashbuckling and dapper in his red
uniform, his green eyes glittering as he
slashes his saber, it's hard to believe he
became an actor, in part, because of
the residual fear of the antisemitism
he felt as a Jew in Britain.
The fear, he says, was handed down
to him by his parents and by others in
the close-knit Jewish community of
Liverpool, of which his Eastern
European great-grandparents were
founding members. The community
was insular, Isaacs recalls, and young
Jason attended a Jewish school and
cheder twice a week.
Then the family moved to London,
where the antisemitism Isaacs had
learned about in theory became a real-
ity. There were attacks on his local
synagogue and, in the late 1970s, the
National Front's fascist policies
spurred a rash of skinhead violence in
his neighborhood.
"Battles ensued," Isaacs says, "and I
was occasionally involved in things
that were unsavory."
Most of the time, however, Isaacs
was low-key about being Jewish. "I
feel very vulnerable telling you this,
because I'm an English actor and I
don't really want to see this in the
British press, because it's damaging,"

