Jason Isaacs Reveals All About His Character in “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”

Jason Isaacs is back, ready to fill the shoes of yet another villain – and we’re not complaining. Isaacs is set to appear as a voice actor in Netflix’s new show The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. This series is a prequel to Jim Henson’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal, and we, along with Isaacs, think that fantasy fans are going to love this one, especially those who are missing Game of Thrones.

This show is anything but ordinary, filled with amazingly crafted puppets, breathtaking visuals, and a complex story people are bound to be binge-watching in no time. Isaacs voices a big, bad, evil character known as the Emperor of the Skeksis. The story takes place in a world called Thra, and the plot follows a wandering Gelfling who learns more than he should about the Skeksis.

Isaacs recently sat down with Uproxx and ComicBook.com to discuss his new character, and he had some very interesting things to say. For one, he didn’t actually choose to play the Emperor; the job was offered to him. He later read up about the character, found out that Henson’s daughter, Lisa Henson, was in charge of the project, and knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Isaacs is most famously known by Harry Potter fans for portraying the role of Lucius Malfoy in the films, but does he enjoy always playing the bad guy? According to Isaacs, it doesn’t really matter whether the character is evil or not; he just likes to play interesting characters.

I try to play interesting characters that are in interesting stories; whether they’re the antagonist or the hero or best man doesn’t really matter to me. I guess, the better the writing is, the better I look as an actor. […] It’s a gigantic fantasy epic with an entirely original world, and there really aren’t that many of those around these days, so I jumped at it.

Isaacs has previously revealed that he didn’t think of his past characters as villains while playing them, and he took the same approach with Skeksis, saying that people rarely think that they’re doing the wrong thing in life. The same goes for villains.

The people [whom] I’m most annoyed by or upset by or fear in the world all look in the mirror in the morning and think they have it right and other people have it wrong. I try and take parts where that’s true of the character, and that way, they’re believable.

Of course, we’re all curious as to how the voice acting for the series went down, and Isaacs provided some details. Many thought that some of the scenes might have been recorded in groups, but Isaacs said that he never recorded with anyone else because of technical reasons.

The thing about it, logically, is that it screams out in group scenes that you should be together, but actually, you wouldn’t get clean sound that way.

On how he figured out what the Emperor should sound like, Isaacs said that it was indeed a bit of a challenge.

I looked at the creature, at his kind of amazing, long, alligator snout and the fact that he doesn’t have a real nose, and he’s got teeth that need some very advanced orthodontistry, and I thought, ‘What kind of sound would come out from that?’ I just came up with something that I thought might come out of that body, and that’s what we went with.

When asked what kind of spell from Harry Potter would be the most helpful to Skeksis, save the Killing Curse, Isaacs replied that he was actually always quite ignorant about spells.

The only one I liked was [the Killing Curse], though I’m not sure that would do Skekso much good.

Spoken like a true Death Eater.

You can see more of Isaacs’ interview in the video below.

The series launches on Netflix on August 30. Are you excited? Let us know in the comments.