Thank Jason Isaacs for Lucius Malfoy’s Iconic Wig in ‘Harry Potter’

Were you one of the millions of viewers who fell in love with Lucius Malfoy’s look in the Harry Potter franchise? Well, thank Jason Isaacs for the character. According to the actor—who is now starring in season 3 of The White Lotus—he created Lucius’s entire outfit, wig and all.

“They showed me sketches of a guy in a pinstripe suit, with hair like I have now,” Isaacs tells Esquire. The hair-and-makeup department told him that Dumbledore had a wig, but Isaacs said that he wanted long blond hair as well. “There was like a tinfoil wig that you buy at the gas station, and I said, ‘Can I borrow that?’ ”

Isaacs then repeated the scene with the costume department, where he told them that he was hoping for fur, velvet, and capes. You know, like a wizard. “They said, ‘He’s a businessman,’ and I said, ‘No, he’s an aristocrat, and he would never want to dress like a muggle.’ ” So Isaacs draped himself in a curtain, walked over to the set, and surprised director Christopher Columbus with his new look.

He didn’t stop there. “I was thinking I could have a cane, and my wand would come out of the cane,” Isaacs recalls telling the stunned director. Columbus responded that they had a conceit in the film where wands would just appear out of nowhere, but Isaacs remembers saying, “I know, I’ve seen it. It’s great. I thought mine could appear from my cane.” The rest is movie history. You can watch Isaacs tell the whole story himself in the video below.

“I loved my long hair because it gave me character,” Isaacs says. “The only way to keep it straight was to tilt my head back. I looked down my nose at people and I didn’t have to do any acting.”

Along with the video, Isaacs also spoke with Esquire about his time on The White Lotus season 3. He plays Timothy Ratliff, a financier from North Carolina who finds himself involved in an embezzlement scheme while on a vacation halfway across the world. You can read the whole interview here.

Still, Isaacs is most recognized as Lucius Malfoy when he’s out on the town—well, by millennial parents, at least. “The kids will have no idea why the fuck they’re being dragged up to the cosmetics aisle in Sephora or wherever it is I’m out getting tampons for my daughter,” he jokes. “They’re just staring as their parents are going, ‘Do you recognize him? He’s a wizard.’ And they’re going, ‘No, I don’t.’ ”