Jason Isaacs is reflecting on “embarrassing” comments he made earlier this month when grilled about his recent White Lotus nude scene in a TV interview.
Two weeks ago, Jason’s character in the hit US series was seen accidentally exposing himself to his family while distractedly grappling with the fall-out of his illegal dealings back home and subsequent spiral into substance abuse.
After the full-frontal scene aired, the former Harry Potter star was repeatedly asked about it in interviews, including during a now-infamous appearance on CBS Mornings, where the presenting team pressed him on whether or not he used a prosthetic for the sequence.
“I think it’s interesting that there’s a double standard for men, but when women are naked [...] nobody would dream of talking to them about their genitalia or nipples or any of those things,” he responded at the time, specifically naming Mikey Madison and Margaret Qualley as two women who have appeared nude on screen in the past year.
Asked about these comments in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal (the same publication who kick off the chain of events that cause his character’s unravelling in The White Lotus, no less!), Jason responded: “The phrase ‘double standard’ is completely wrong. Women have had a terrible time.
“Mike [White, the creator of The White Lotus] is trying to redress the balance of how many times women have been asked to or forced to be naked unnecessarily. So it just came out wrong.”
He continued: “I was just wondering why for so many journalists it was very important to know if they’d actually seen my penis, and why they thought that was okay to grill me about it.
“And what I thought I could do was sweep that away so that we could talk about the show, and it created far more of a fuss than it needed, and it’s embarrassing all around I think.”
Shortly after his original interview on CBS Mornings aired, Jason issued a statement which read: “I said the wrong words in the wrong way. I used the phrase ‘double standard,’ which I didn’t mean at all. There is a [different] double standard — women have been monstrously exploited and men haven’t.”
He went on to say that his words “came out wrong” as the result of being “tired” from “so many interviews”.
“I absolutely should not have mentioned those two actresses, whom I respect enormously,” he continued. “Mikey Madison I’m a massive fan of.
“My point wasn’t that men have had a harder time than women — that would be absurd. Women have had a monstrous time on camera forever, and I hope to God that is changing.”
The White Lotus continues on Mondays on Sky and Now in the UK.