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Actor Jason Isaacs, who is noted for his role as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movie franchise, recently opened up about drugs, alcohol and what it was like for him as a 16 year old. The actor also said that his teenage self would be surprised that he overcame the issues he faced then,
The actor who played Captain Hook in Peter Pan revealed his first experience with alcohol was at the age of 16. In a candid interview for The Big Issue’s ‘Letter to My Younger Self’, Jason spoke about how he was an addict at an early age as well as the work he had to do to overcome those struggles decades later.
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Said the Harry Potter actor, “I’ve always had an addictive personality and by the age of 16 I’d already passed through drink and was getting started on a decades long love affair with drugs.”
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He continued, “Every action was filtered through a burning need I had for being as far from a conscious, thinking, feeling person as possible. No message would get through for nearly 20 years.”
The Monster Family actor spoke about his first experience getting drunk and how it led to an addiction problem. Isaacs said, “The barman, who we thought at the time was a hero and I now realize belonged in prison, sneaked us a full bottle of Southern Comfort. We drank the entire thing in the toilet, then staggered out into the party, reeling around farcically. I vomited, fell on and pulled down a giant curtain, snogged a girl, god bless her… ran out into the street, vomited again, tripped, smashed my head open on the pavement and gushed blood all over my clothes.”
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Continuing, “The next morning, I woke up with a splitting headache, stinking of puke with a huge scab and the memory of having utterly shamed myself. All I could think was… I cannot f**king wait to do that again. Why? I’ve no idea. Genes? Nurture? Star sign? I just know I chased the sheer ecstatic joy I felt that night for another 20 years with increasingly dire consequences.”
Isaacs explained how he felt while struggling with the depths of his addiction saying, “I remember there being a moment, not long before I got clean, when it suddenly occurred to me that if everybody I knew died, literally every single person, I probably wouldn’t mind that much,” he shared. “In fact, I might like it, because then it would be an excuse to sit in a room by myself and take drugs and everybody else would say, ‘Well you know, fair enough, you heard what happened didn’t you?'”
Looking back, Isaacs said his younger self would be surprised to learn that he’s overcome his issues. He said, “I love, I feel, I connect, I care. We all do. “The drugs weren’t a way of dealing with that sense of distance, the drugs were causing it.” He continued, “I think what would surprise the 16-year-old me is that I’m okay. That I manage to find simple happiness in simple things. Not always, not perfectly, but enough.”
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