It sounds like about 10 journalists are present at this roundtable. Some questions (but not answers) have been edited for clarity, some I could not hear at all.

I'd like to ask you if you have any interest personally in magic.

I've always been a magician, strangely enough. I used to do and still do close up magic and used to entertain and children's parties when I was at drama school. Don't tell the Inland Revenue Service, but I did. And I love the spooky things. I remember when I was younger I used to do this thing at school, it was a TV series in England, I think it was an American series too, but anyway it was a TV series about these superheroes who used to communicate telepathically and my best friend and I would stand in assembly and do some strange little secret nod to each other and communicate telepathically all through assembly and when we saw each other at lunch times. We never checked that we were having the same conversation, luckily. But everybody likes to believe in magic, I seek those things out because I'm actually terribly rational and completely agnostic and I find it hard to believe in other worldly things probably because like all of us I'm desperate to believe it in. When my daughter was born, she was born at 10:17 in the morning and when we came back home three days later there was a message at 10:15 in the morning and her mother had sat bolt upright in Toronto, it was 5:15 in the morning in Toronto, sat bolt upright, know something was going on with he baby and phones our house and says something's going on with the baby, and that was when her head appeared. Is that magic? I don't know. I like all that stuff. Everybody likes all that stuff, that's why Harry Potter books sell so many grillions of copies.

[Something asked about playing villains]

It's only fun to play things that are really well written. That's all that counts. Often hero parts are very badly written. But then villain parts are terribly badly written as well and that's why I've only done, I did The Patriot and I didn't do any for two and a half years, and I was offered every villain under the sun for a while after The Patriot. I had a short window of opportunity to cash in that I missed much to my bank manager's chagrin But they're so badly written most of the time. Lucius is such a wonderful character because you don't need to look far for inspiration. Here's a guy who thinks his blood is purer than others' and that wizards should rule the world and that a certain race should be wiped out. He comes from families that have been in power forever and he can't bear to see these mixed bloods taking power, and every time you switch on the telly, there's people like that getting elected to governments all over Europe as we speak and running around America with pillowcases on their heads. So it's children's literature but it's very relevant to the world we live in.

Did you nick anything from the set?

I'm desperate to nick things from the set. Mostly I wanted that cane. I came up with this walking came thing with a big snake's head on it and I couldn't really do the part without it, I tried to get it in every scene, I don't know if you notice but it has a prominent part with me and I really wanted to walk off with it and they said, "No, we need it in case there's reshoots and we need it for the next film." They always say that, that's what they said in The Patriot and then I see my costume coming up on Ebay for sale. So no, but I'm desperate, desperate.

What did you think when you first saw yourself as Lucius? That's quite a striking look.

That wasn't the look that they originally wanted, they wanted me to have short white hair, maybe grey hair and there was some worry that because I've got dark hair that it wouldn't go blonde, and somebody floated the idea that I should have badger hair, which is black with blonde tips, and a pinstriped suit because I work in government and I said, "F*ck this, I'm playing a wizard. How often am I going to play a wizard? I want to have long blonde hair, Richard gets to have long hair, why don't I get long hair?" He doesn't care about the muggle world, Lucius Malfoy, he wouldn't nod to it. Plus he's from those families, aristocratic wizarding families. He wouldn't wear a pinstriped suit, he'd wear what people have worn forever in his family, floor length ermine and velvet and stuff like that. So they were very indulgent and we tried these things out and I put it on and went to the set and I remember they had to interrupt the scene to have a look at me and Chris went, "Ahh, yeah, that's better." And so that's what we went with.

The introduction of your character immediately sets the tone for how ark this movie is. Can you talk about whether or not you feel that, is it too dark for the young kids.

You know, kids can take things, we're all terribly frightened about, everybody's delicate about what you can tell children and then you look at Grimm's fairy tales. There's a wolf that eats your grandmother, sits in the bed, and all children's stories are riven with unbelievably dark imagery. N the first Harry Potter his parents are murdered and he lives with these abusive relatives who lock him under the stairs and stuff. When I think back to what terrified me as a child And then you look at three year olds watching Buffy [the Vampire Slayer] at three in the afternoon and people are getting stakes driven through their hearts and decapitated. I don't think you can do dark enough for children, I think they're far more resilient than we think and their nightmares take them further than we can ever take them.

So what did terrify you as a child?

Everything. Still does. I remember the childcatcher in Chitty Bang Bang for instance, you know, the notion that it was this creature who would tempt you with ice cream and lollies and lock you in a cage an take you away was a pretty scary thing for me. I was scared of everything and nowadays they're laughable the things that scare you, but I think children can take any, having read children's stories to them, there's witches that poison you and lock you up there's people that burst in and prick your finger and try and kill you. Fairy tales are just full of this grotesque macabre imagery and children are fine with it. It helps form t heir notions of good and evil The important thing is that the stories have moral core, and what they're leading you towards, they're not just there to be gratuitous. They're there to lead you towards what Harry Potter leads you towards, these great values of bravery and loyalty and friendship. What's brave, what's the ultimate for what's, is it more fun to be hero or a villain, good heroes , when they're well written, are about people who are terrified and do it anyway. Because they need to, because they need to stand up for someone who can't stand up for themselves. And that's what Harry does.

Has there been any conversation whatsoever about including you in the next book?

No, I'm not in book three and luckily I'm not in book three because I'm making Peter Pan in Australia, and it will probably overlap. And he's in book four and I don't know if people will forget about me, and that'll be fine, I'll just have to reintroduce myself in book four. It's fine by me because as much fun as it was it was fantastic to go from doing book " to doing peter pan to doing book three would be just a little bit too much of the same thin g for my liking. No, there's been no discussion, and just as well.

What are you doing in Peter Pan?

I'm playing Mr. Darling and Captian Hook. The way J.M. Barrie intended it. It's fantastic What's great is that no one's ever made a film of Peter Pan. Everyone thinks that they've seen it, but tin fact, no one has. Disney did a cartoon, which is nothing like J.M. Barrie's book or story and Steven Spielberg made a film about a forty year old man who couldn't stop using the cell phone [Hook]. He didn't make J.M. Barrie's version of Peter Pan, and it's the first time that anyone's ever made live action version with a 12-year-old boy playing a 12-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl playing a 12-year-old girl and that's what it's about, it's actually about little girl, the first play was called Peter and Wendy, and it's about a little girl who is facing adulthood and is terrified of it and so goes of to this land where there's someone who has never grown up and there's someone who's too grown up frankly, and the way Captain Hook is, I'm having a great time because currently we're shooting Mr. Darling, I haven't done any Captain Hook yet. And he's a fantastic character. He's terrified of the world and society and trying to groom his kids to grow up quickly like he had to. He's got a real arc, in that pretentious actor language. I'm having wonderful time doing it.

Are you ready to be so huge in the eyes of kids?

I don't think any kids will ever recognize me. I went in and auditioned for this part and I didn't hear anything from them in forever, and so in the interim I was offered Captian Hook, and I wasn't sure whether to do Lucius Malfoy or not. I'd read the books, I went off and read the books after the audition and I read all four book in one sitting - you know, didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic, and I suddenly understood why my friends, who I'd thought were slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack. But nonetheless I thought, should I really do Lucius Malfoy? I just committed to doing Captain Hook. Every child I knew called me, I mean every child I knew called me, all my godchildren called me and said you have to do it. They're very manipulative children; mostly they did it because they wanted to come to the set, but they also said you have to do it because Lily, who's my daughter, she's going to love it, she'll be so proud of you she is going to want you to be in Harry Potter. So it's only after having done it and seen it, I'm not quite sure like you say whether it's going to make me the most popular guy at kindergarten. Lucius Malfoy is turning out to pick up his daughter. I think they'll all be hiding behind the playblocks.

That's funny because I remember when we interviewed everyone for the first Movie, every adult actors aid the same thing - my son said I had to do it, etc.

And I kept my promise, I brought all the kids to the set. and Chris was a fantastic host, when kids come to the set, they always got to tour and they got to see all the - they're not seeing set you see, they walk into the Great Hall . And they're actually very disappointed too when they come visit sometimes because they don't want to meet Daniel. They want to meet Harry Potter. And they don't want to see Robbie, they say, "How come Robbie's only six foot tall? I thought Hagrid was 9 foot tall!" and they're slightly disappointed. I remember bringing some of my goddaughters to the set and them going to Daniel, why aren't you wearing your glasses, and he said, "I don't actually wear glasses." "Yes you do!" And then Tom walked by, and I said, "This is Tom, who plays my son," and and he went, "Oh, hello, how are you?" and they went, "That's not your voice! Do your voice!" He said, "I don't really have a voice." "Yes you do!" They slightly lost it, as a lot of the kids did when they came to visit. They got too excited.

The actor that plays your son, has he told you that he's been jeered at on the street?

Oh, no. He's a very good-looking boy, Tom, very smooth, he looks like he should be in a boy band, looks like he is a boy band, all by himself. And when I arrived it was just after Valentine's Day, and this is the first year, unlike last year, where they were all actually sending Valentines cards to each other, because they're all growing up, these kids. I think I think Tom got a fair old hefty sackful this year. I think I will have own him legions of more female fans because I watched the first film for some inspiration, what is this world I'm entering. I looked at this horrible little git who was my son. When I arrived and we played the first scene, we went straight into the first scene, and I just grabbed him by the ear, and then I rapped him on the knuckles, and he looked up at me really hurt. I didn't know if it was Tom or Draco that was looking so hurt, because I just thought it was right that Lucius I a really horrible Dad, really abusive Dad. And I could see generations of Malfoys stretching back into time where the fathers have been cold and brutal and hideous to their kids and that's what turns the kids into that. And for me it makes it far more understandable why Draco's like that at school. He gets no love at home, it's a horrible loveless place, and suddenly he' at school and he's not going to let anyone else enjoy themselves, he's resentful of real friendships for instance, and so I think I get him the compassionate vote, which you wouldn't have thought Draco would ever get from anybody.

What went into your decision to not tell Tom you were going to do that. Was it just a spur of the moment thing?

I thought I'd just go for it in the scene and see what happened, because he's a really good little actor, you can tell with some people. He's a really good little actor and good actors love being thrown things in scenes. They love not knowing what's going to happen. There's line in the film that I made up, which is in the trailers, actually, which is, "Let us hope Mr. Potter will always be around to save the day." You know, it's not in the book, it's not in the script, we just did it, and Daniel was fantastic. In fact, in the next take Daniel said, don't worry , I will be, and those magical moments only happen on the film set where the director is in control enough to let things to be out of control slightly. That sounds weird and paradoxical but it's true. If you set all the ground rules up enough then weird little things can come sprouting out.

Do you make your home here or are you still in England?

London. I mean, I say London. I've barely slept in my own bed for a long time but yeah London.

Do you think of moving to the states or Hollywood?

I've thought of it and my missus is not keen and certainly not keen to raise a baby there. The only reason I would do it is because I'm a complete tart for the sunshine and I have some very good friends who live there but it is, I would worry about the fact that if the kids get upset they'll just get up and blow everyone away at school. Then you get people like Charlton Heston saying it's because we need more armed security guards at school. You know. When he can remember what his name is. Sorry. Well, you know, I thought it was a disgusting thing to say and it's a terrible, tragic thing that he has Alzheimers now but it doesn't make it any less disgusting that he said that at the time. So I worry about that and also there is another sense, in Hollywood, that you are constantly, your place in the pecking order is constantly reevaluated with every conversation, with every weekend gross, whoever you are, anywhere. And whilst I've been the beneficiary of that sometimes, I've been there and I've been in a big film, or something that's just opening and everybody's incredibly nice to me, it's also the place I've been and had social leprosy, where I've not been working or I've been in something that's a flop, and I'm not sure that I could take those kinds of ups and downs. Plus my Missus, who is, Emma is a very, very smart able woman who has had a very successful career in documentaries. She could be the invisible woman there at dinner, whereas she's much more interesting than me and smarter and better read and does a more responsible job in London and in most of the rest of the world that's taken seriously. She might as well be the maid in Hollywood a lot of the time because she' not in the movie business. I've said to her a couple of times, "Darling, all my work is coming out of Hollywood, and I have to keep going there anyway," and she said, "But if we move there, you'll just be going away to make the films and leaving me, so essentially you're saying, will I go and live in Hollywood while you go and live in Mexico and Toronto and morocco and everywhere else." So it wouldn't be that sensible of a thing to do.

Captain Hook up until now has always been played with a wink to the audience. Are you going to play it like that?

Well he's not a buffoon, that's what he's not. It' s not a comedy part. On the other hand he is funny because there's a 12-year-old boy who gets the better of him. It's not The Patriot. I wouldn't do it if it was the same as the other things I've done. One of the hard things that's fun with Peter Pan is trying to get the tone right. I think PJ has done something almost spooky and seems to be channeling Jane Barry with his adaptation. He's invented some new characters and has changed things a lot because it wasn't a film, it was a book. And everything seems to be Barryesque and I hadn't read the book until I got this job, it's a fantastic book. And it's dark and it's funny and it's really got something for grownups in there. I mean you read it to kids they'll be experiencing it on one level but for a grownup it's a completely different level to be enjoyed on. I don't know, I'm throwing all these things into the mix and I hope that the tone will be right, it will be somewhere between all of them. He's very haunted, Captain Hook. He's tortured guy, he just can't get it, can't understand it, it's driving him nuts. So, anyway. I don't know how it'll turn out. I haven't done it yet, quite frankly I don't know what he's going to look like.

Are you done with or are you doing Extraordinary Gentlemen?

It's a very weird thing with Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's all over the Internet and it's all over the press that I'm playing this part, and I hope that the checks arrive soon because I've never read the script or met on the part and I've never been offered it and I'm not doing it. Some actor somewhere is playing Campion Bond and it must be really pissing him off that every time he opens a newspaper it talks about what fun I'm having on the set, and how I've been flooded off it in Prague and everything. Very odd. I don't know where it started.

[Something about Sean Connery]

I did a film called Dragonheart [in which Isaacs played a character called Lord Felton and Sean Connery did the voice of a dragon named Draco, it's interesting to note] and he was the voice of the dragon and there was a premiere at the Edinburgh festival and I went there and [Connery] was there and I think Emma said, "Come on let's go meet him", and I said "No," and she said, "Come on, you're in the film with him!" I said, "He did the voiceover in the Bahamas, I can't go over there," she said, "Look at all those other people crowding his table." He came to the premiere in Edinburgh because, you know, he's like the king of Scotland, and he came with his brother who looks like him and they sat at this table and like they always do at these premieres there's a huge crush on one table so you know where he's sitting. And she said, "Come on, let's go speak to him!" So I made my way over to the table with Emma, the crowd moved like a slow conveyor belt, you know, the line for Space Mountain at Disney, and we go closer and closer and we finally got next to the table, pretending we were just standing there drifting, and we turn around and it was his brother, and he had gone home. And I'm sure that's what everyone else had been doing all night.

Does his brother sound like him?

He looks just like him, yeah. In fact when I first met Mel [Gibson] I couldn't believe that was his real voice. He was talking to me and I was like "Wow." He said, "What?" I said, "That's how you talk?" He said, "Well, what do you think I talk like?" I said "I don't know, I thought you had a really strong Australian accent, and you tried to do an American accent in the film and it ended up as this hybrid." He said "No, I was an American kid ,I moved to Australia, I've always had this, it's why I'm an actor. I stuck out in Australia, I stick out here."

How much fun was it working with Jackie Chan?

He's a fantastic man. Have you ever interviewed him? [No.] Oh, Jesus, he's unbelievable. First of all there can't just be one Jackie Chan, it's just not possible. There's got to be five of him, because he's on the set the whole time, he does charity work every minute of every day you've ever seen, every time there's a day off. He did a Jackie Chan concert while we were there. Just Jackie, onstage, three and a half hours, every member of the Chinese community of Toronto paid hundreds of dollars to come see him. He sings, he dances, he does Kung Fu, origami, flower arranging, you name it, psychic readings. And then we all, all the actors paraded on and off for five minutes doing a fashion show and there's a party afterwards and the people paid a few hundred dollars to come to the party, and Jackie's nowhere to be seen. It's his party, he's the host, he's a fantastic host. Turns out he spent the three hours at the party standing there with all those local dignitaries lining up paying 50 bucks a shot extra at the party to have a Polaroid taking with Jackie and five minutes conversation. It's all going to charity. And when it finishes, he's been at this party for three hours, not had a minute to himself, he comes around and finds all the actors who were in the film, gave us a big hug and kiss each and thanked us for giving up our time. We'd given up like ten minutes. He's just never leaves the set, if he sees a bit of dirt somewhere, if someone's struggling carrying something, he runs over and carries it. This guy cannot be real. It's just not possible. I suspect they were quintuplets and they make sure they're never seen in the same place at the same time.

What kind of career are you into - do you want to be a Mel Gibson, a character actor, what?

I want to be a good Dad. Every time I make a plan God laughs at me. I certainly wouldn't plan o play two children's villains in a row. Every time I think I should do a play in London I end up doing a film in Timbuktu. Or I need to do a Hollywood film now, and I end up doing a play for a hundred pounds a week. I can't make a career plan, I don't think I'll ever be a romantic leading man which is just as well because theirs is a pretty short shelf life and you know, if the film doesn't work you're blamed for it and it's very much not your fault and I've seen friends of mine drown under the weight of expectation. I think if I trundle along doing my job nicely I can probably keep working for a long time. One of the things I like about what's going on at the moment is that all the jobs I've done so far, it sounds weird, but I've got by auditioning for them. I go into a hotel room somewhere with someone who doesn't really know me, has not really seen me in a film and I pretend to be someone else for five minutes, and then they go away and think about it or they watch the tape and they go, yes, that's the best guy for the job. And strangely enough that's not what happens most of the time. Most of my friends are writers and directors and whatever, and they're in this terrible situation where they have to offer a job to someone or else they won't read the script. And they have no idea if this person is even right for it or not. And Hollywood is all about moving you up this totem pole so that you get to a point where you don't have to meet people anymore and you certainly don't have to audition. And I am always saying to my agent, "Get me in the room and get me to read opposite them. I'd like to win this job." And so far I've won all my jobs through a lot of luck getting the opportunity but also through merit and I feel a bit more secure than lots of friends that I know for whom that's not true. I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives. And I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the streets. I don't look anything like Lucius Malfoy, let's face it. I don't look anything like Captain Hook or anything like any of the people I play. So I'm quite happy not to get the girl.

How about being an action figure though? You're going to be an action figure.

Yeah. I was an action figure in Dragonheart and I think I sold more than Dennis Quaid because although in the film I never drew my sword in anger, I was a terrible coward, my little model came with a spinning battle ax and his came with something like a wheelbarrow or something. And for some reason mine looked like the rock and his looked like peewee. So I don't know if the Lucius Malfoy doll is going to look anything like me or not but hopefully it'll have that cane. I'm the one that came up with the cane and the wand idea, Chris said to me, "Ah, the toy guys are going to love you."

For both Harry Potter and for Peter Pan you've had to go back and read the stories and do some research. Has the opened you up to the idea of reading other kids' books?

I now read them because I have a daughter although she's only six months and people think I'm insane I'm told that you should read them children's books, and they just like the sound of your voice, so I'm reading them again, reading all kinds of things that I haven't read since I was a kid to her. And it seems to me that great children's literature is stuff that works for adults because it's got these adult themes and it's more than just plot. It's about something. But I also think that given the choice I'd rather read an adult book. Because I think people don't read enough, I certainly don't read enough, and every time I read a book like, I've just been flying for whatever, a month and a half to get here and I read two books on the plane, and they're proper books and they make me think. In your wildest dreams a piece of art and entertainment - a book or a play or a film or whatever - actually might affect the way you behave and treat the world and treat yourself and I think it's more likely that adult books are going to do that for me.

Have you signed on for the fourth and fifth?

I've signed on for the fourth one, and the fifth one I can reveal now that Jo Rowling actually sent me an early draft of it, it's called Harry Potter and the Lucius Chronicles, it's all about his early romantic adventures, but she said it may change.

Are you doing Resident Evil: Nemesis?