Harry Potter alum Jason Isaacs has no doubt that Johnny Flynn will chart his own path as the new Lucius Malfoy.
Flynn is set to take over the role Isaacs previously played in the movies as the evil Malfoy patriarch for HBO’s upcoming TV series, and Isaacs can’t wait to see how Flynn interprets the character.
“Johnny will do his own thing,” Isaacs tells Entertainment Weekly. “Maybe he’ll be more charming. I doubt that he’ll look like me, because that was the look I came up with and he’s far too original to want to copy anything.”
Jason Isaacs and Tom Felton in ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I’.
Warner Bros
Isaacs previously worked with Flynn on the 2021 war drama Operation Mincemeat. When asked if Flynn had reached out to him recently to discuss taking over as Lucius, the White Lotus star zipped his lips.
“If he had, I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Isaacs said with a smirk before adding, “I texted him, and I can say that because that’s my domain to talk about. I texted because we did a film together and we were friendly. He’s absolutely delightful and phenomenally talented, and I have no doubt he’s going to do something completely different from what I did because I did my own thing.”
That’s why Isaacs is excited to see the new series, since he knows it will be very different from the movies.
“They’re redesigning everything from scratch,” Isaacs says. “They’re redesigning Hogwarts and the costumes and they’re writing all these fabulous new scripts that are expanding each book into whole season. And it’ll be fab — it’ll be for a new generation. It’ll be their version of Harry Potter.”
Isaacs previously lamented that he’ll “be long forgotten” as soon as another actor takes over as Lucius, but he now adds that “what will never go away are the books.”
“It all starts and comes from the books, and the books are beloved,” he says. “But Johnny’s great. I can’t wait to see what everyone does, frankly, all the cast are amazing. I’m really looking forward to seeing what John Lithgow does. All of them. It’s going to be fab because it’s not like I watch the films, because I’m in them, so that’s a bit weird for me. But now I can watch them with unalloyed fandom instead of thinking there’s a narcissism of watching myself.”
Isaacs first played the father of Draco Malfoy (played by Tom Felton in the films, with Lox Pratt taking over the role in the TV show) in 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He returned for multiple movies throughout the franchise.
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In addition to Flynn and Pratt, the new Harry Potter TV series has been rounding out its cast with Dominic McLaughlin as the titular boy wizard; Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger; Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley; Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid; Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore; Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall; Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape; Tristan Harland as Fred Weasley; Gabriel Harland as George Weasley; Ruari Spooner as Percy Weasley; Gracie Cochrane as Ginny Weasley; and Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley.
From showrunner Francesca Gardiner (also a writer and executive producer) and director Mark Mylod (also an executive producer), the series has been billed as a faithful adaptation of the book series from J.K. Rowling and the blockbuster film franchise that starred Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint as the golden trio. It will premiere sometime in 2027.