‘Harry Potter’ Star Jason Isaacs Reveals ‘Decades-Long Love Affair With Drugs’

Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs opened up about his “decades-long love affair with drugs” during a recent interview with The Big Issue for the publication’s “Letter to My Younger Self” series.

Isaacs said, “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.”

The star who played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films continued saying, “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 though for nearly 20 years.”

Isaacs then went on to describe his first experience with alcohol at the age of 12 and how it led to his struggle with addiction. “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.”

He continued the story saying, “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—ing wait to do that again. Why? I’ve no idea. Genes? Nurture? Star sign?” Isaacs recalled the night and said, “I just know I chased the sheer ecstatic joy I felt that night for another 20 years with increasingly dire consequences.”

Isaacs has since overcome his addiction and talked about his current state. “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.”

The star added that his younger self would be surprised to know that he has moved passed his issues. “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.”