Jason Isaacs is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series (2002–2011). His other film roles include Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot (2000), Michael D. Steele in Black Hawk Down (2001), Captain Hook in Peter Pan (2003), James Wolfe in Battle of the Brave (2004), Antonio Pérez in The Escorial Conspiracy (2007), Georgy Zhukov in The Death of Stalin (2017) and John Godfrey in Operation Mincemeat (2021).

Isaacs was born to Jewish parents in Liverpool on 6 June 1963. His father was a jeweller. He has two older brothers and one younger brother. He spent his earliest childhood years in the Liverpool suburb of Childwall, in a "closely knit & integrated" Jewish community co-founded by his Eastern European Jewish great-grandparents. He has said that being Jewish played a big role in his childhood, as he attended youth club in the local synagogue of King David High School in Liverpool's Childwall district, as well as a cheder twice a week as a young adult. When he was 11, he moved with his family to London and attended the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in nearby Elstree at the same time as David Baddiel, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Kermode, and Matt Lucas. He describes the bullying and intolerance he observed and experienced during his childhood as "preparation" for portraying the "unattractive" villains he has most often played.