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[00:00]
Paige
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[00:50]
Jason Isaacs
must be done.
[00:50]
Advertisement Voice
There is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap.
[00:57]
Did you know that the very first
[00:59]
Jason Isaacs
assembly of photographs in sequential order to
[01:01]
Advertisement Voice
create a motion Picture was a 2 second clip of a black man on a horse?
[01:07]
Mark Kermode
We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here and we want them now.
[01:13]
Jason Isaacs
You really don't want me to play, huh? No, I do. Captain Howdy said no.
[01:18]
Mark Kermode
Captain who? Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Thanks for downloading this Kermode on Film podcast. This episode is the second half of the July 2026 MK3 show, recorded live at the BFI South bank in London. I'm joined by filmmaker and artist Imran Peretta to talk about his film Ish and by the inimitable Jason Isaacs. So sit back, relax and take a front row seat at MK3D recorded live at the BFI South bank in London. Enjoy. And again, another coming attraction opening in cinemas on 31st July. Take a look at this. This is a trailer for a film there's been a lot of interest in.
[01:56]
Audience Member or Assistant
Take a look at this.
[02:00]
Mark Kermode
Wait.
[02:01]
Advertisement Voice
Running.
[02:13]
Mark Kermode
Of all days. You're working on her anniversary.
[02:15]
Jason Isaacs
How does that make sense?
[02:17]
Imran Perretta
Don't say up to you late. All right.
[02:24]
Jason Isaacs
What? Decided you are. Other people are going to decide for all you wish you get me.
[02:50]
Audience Member or Assistant
One.
[02:51]
Jason Isaacs
It's just running left, bro.
[02:52]
Paige
Left me for dead.
[03:06]
Mark Kermode
Where is that boy? He's not calling around.
[03:14]
Advertisement Voice
Is.
[03:15]
Mark Kermode
Do you hear me? I don't want you anywhere near my.
[03:24]
Jason Isaacs
Respect you show me, huh? Spit it out then, big man.
[03:46]
Mark Kermode
It's getting terrific reviews and deservedly so. Please welcome artists, filmmaker and composer Imran Paretta. Welcome to the show. When I do that sort of multi hyphenate thing at the beginning. Which one do you think of yourself as? First visual artist, filmmaker, writer, composer, which is the first one,
[04:20]
Imran Perretta
probably artist, because it's where I started. And I think the great thing about that job title is you can kind of do anything you want, which has been a real boon for me because I get to kind of just indulge any creative urges I have. But it's been an amazing thing to kind of be able to variously flip between I guess, the art world, the music world and now the film world.
[04:43]
Mark Kermode
Now this has its basis in an art piece because you started exploring this in an art project. First explain to me how this. How we came to the point that we have this feature. Incidentally, it's wonderful. I know everyone's telling you this, but it is a really magnificent piece of work. So how did we get here?
[05:02]
Imran Perretta
Well, so I've been making moving image work in the art world for over a decade now. And I've kind of just existed making sort of weird experimental bits of. Of, you know, dual screen works. All kinds of like, things that expand the form, I guess what would broadly
[05:18]
Mark Kermode
be called visual installation or.
[05:20]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's a moving image. It's kind of like a weird sort of counterculture of its own. And I had made a piece called the Destructors, which incidentally is about to go on show at the Tate Britain. I was there all day today actually installing it. And that's a two screen piece. I don't want to explain too much about it. I think people have to go and see it. But there's a chapter or an act within that work about a young man who's sort of preparing to run from the police and what it means for him to live with the anxiety of not feeling safe. And this idea that living in the context of a surveillance state or in a hostile environment has an effect on your body, you're always ready to run. And it's something that comes from my own life, being a teenager. And so for me, the Destructors, that chapter kind of became the jumping off point for Ish. And I was lucky that the BBC film saw the Destructors when it was showing in London just before the pandemic. And they reached out to me to begin to start sort of thinking about, you know, what a narrative film could look like for me, of course, I had no idea, but I felt I should probably go back to something I knew. And it was that chapter from the Destructors, which in and of itself was a chapter from my own sort of my own youth, you know, my own teenage years.
[06:40]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, because I mean, in some ways it's a coming of age movie. It has two central protagonists, both going through a change which sees their paths dividing and we can kind of imagine the lives that they might lead afterwards. But Nick and I had made a series a while ago called Secrets of Cinema and one of the first ones we did was on coming of age movies. And I was saying to Nick after I'd seen this, if this had been around when we were making that, we would have basically just cannibalized this, you know, whole sections from it. Because it's a very hard thing to get right. That thing about, you know, the cusp of childhood and adulthood and there is a sense of anxiety that is captured brilliantly in this. And it's not just to do with the obvious elements, it's also to do with things like the soundtrack, like the way in which. Because you're a composer. Right. And I was listening, I confessed it when I was watching. I just imagined that there was a lot of collaboration. But you. The score is your score, right?
[07:39]
Imran Perretta
Yes.
[07:40]
Mark Kermode
So had you. Have you always been a musician?
[07:42]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I mean it's in a weird way, it's the thing I've done the longest. I mean, you know, I'm. Luckily for me, I went to a free music school, a council funded music school in South London between the ages of 8 and 10. You know, that doesn't exist anymore. And it was in the days where they'd buy you your instrument.
[07:58]
Mark Kermode
So what did you play?
[07:59]
Imran Perretta
Guitar. Still do. So that's the extent of my training was 8 to 10, so, you know, not much. I kind of started winging it after that. But I think, you know, it's. It's testament to where, you know that when the public sector is. I'm going to go off on a.
[08:15]
Mark Kermode
No, go ahead.
[08:15]
Imran Perretta
The public sector. But when you have a robust public sector and young people are able to access things like free Internet instruments, you know, in 20 odd years time, something like this can happen where you have a fluency and a sort of confidence creatively and it comes from people telling you that you can do it.
[08:32]
Mark Kermode
You know, I want to play a clip that Nick put together, which is a clip which amalgamates something from Destructors with an element of the feature film. And we put these two together because the soundtrack follows from one into the other. And I thought the soundtrack. I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about the soundtrack after we've Just seen these clips. So what you're first going to see, see is a moment from the project that you're talking about that's about to be at the tape Britain, and then from the feature film and you'll see why the two things have been put together. Okay.
[09:42]
Jason Isaacs
Would you want money?
[09:44]
Imran Perretta
Following me like a pagan, bro.
[09:51]
Jason Isaacs
As the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, urgent questions are being asked of the Israeli Prime Minister. In the midst of the ongoing violence, the unists urged the Israeli government to abide by its commitment to international. Israel faces accusations of enacting collective punishment in Gaza.
[10:14]
Advertisement Voice
Wow,
[10:19]
Imran Perretta
That was so cool.
[10:20]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, well, that was Nick, who put that together and.
[10:23]
Imran Perretta
Nice one, Nick.
[10:24]
Mark Kermode
I wrote a book about film music that came out last year. And again, if I'd seen your film before, I would have done an entire chapter on the way in which you've been using music. I think that the music is story to tell me about that thing. Tell me about the hand clapping and the voices. What's going on in that soundtrack?
[10:39]
Imran Perretta
Well, oh, gosh, it's a bit of a mad one, really. So to me, hand clapping is the soundtrack of being in the playground. You know, it's this. It's kind of, you know, the sort of patty cake things that you do and all this sort of stuff. But also it's the sound of like, people giving each other high fives or embracing. There's something about that. It kind of, to me, it's this great signifier for the ways in which teenagers can kind of interact with each other. And then in terms of the voices and all this sort of stuff, this came out of like a sort of, I guess, like a real creative obsession during the making of the soundtrack with, like, randomly medieval English folk music.
[11:15]
Mark Kermode
Of course.
[11:16]
Imran Perretta
Right. You know, and there's a whole story about that. I could drone on for ages about that. But anyway, I guess the signature, I hope, anyway, of the soundtrack is this kind of taking these sort of sounds that you'd associate with how young people exist in the contemporary moment and taking this, like, ancient sort of medieval English folk and kind of bringing them together in interesting formal ways. Because to me, it's about something to do with Englishness, about challenging that a little bit and about taking those kind of tropes of, like, really old music and bringing in these sounds of the body sounds of, like, young people relating to each other in the contemporary moment and sort of bringing them together in a weird way. And I hope it works.
[11:54]
Mark Kermode
There's also this kind of music, concrete element to it which is that the soundtrack sounds like it's being generated by the world that you're watching in the film. And I think that works so well because it's not like. It's like you feel like it is organically part of the thing you're watching. And I thought it was absolutely superb. What, for you, is the film fundamentally about, do you know?
[12:14]
Imran Perretta
It's about so many things. It's about, you know, all of the external things, like, you know, the surveillance state. It's about Islamophobia. It's about what it means for young people to kind of exist within the context of. Of, like, a poly crisis that we're sort of existing in at the moment, all that sort of stuff. But in the end, it's just about two young boys and it's about heartbreak and it's about loss. You know, it's about what it means to have that first heartbreak of losing your best friend. And, you know, how actually that is a tale as old as time. And though their existence is so specific to the geography of Luton, which is where the film is set, and also to their community, the British Muslim community, ultimately it's two young boys falling out. And I think, to me, that is, you know, I remember my falling out with my best mate. It's happened many times, right? You know, and there's something about the deep ache of that first heartbreak that never leaves you. But also, there's so much to learn from it and so much to kind of, you know, it is the coming of age. It's learning to deal with loss. You know, that's so much a part of the passage from childhood into adulthood. Is that reckoning with loss, you know,
[13:19]
Mark Kermode
what is it about Lewton? There's a moment in it when we see football supporters marching down the street chanting, lewton is shit. I want to go home. What is it about Lewton that works for the film?
[13:30]
Imran Perretta
Well, do you know what? I flipping love Lewton. And I think it's a sort of. You know, it's always seen as a sort of terminal and never as a destination. And actually, I think if you look hard enough, it's. It's an amazingly soulful and interesting place. It's had so much bad press to do with.
[13:47]
Mark Kermode
Why has it had bad press? Because it's one of those things like Stevenage. It's the same thing.
[13:51]
Imran Perretta
It sounds at the punch reading, you know.
[13:53]
Mark Kermode
No, but. Yeah, but. Which are all really perfectly nice places. And, you know, I mean, I grew up in Barnet, right? I love Barnet. If you say to me you know, I grew up in Barnet, they go, I'm very sorry for your loss, you know. So what is it about Luton that gets you in the field but that makes other people sing? It's shit and I want to go home.
[14:12]
Imran Perretta
Well, you know, there's a lot of. One is that I have some family there. I mean, also I'm from Streatham. I've had a whole lifetime of people telling me it's a shithole. So, you know, I know, I know it well, but I think for me it's one of those places again. It's a place that people pass through whether they're on the way to the airport or they're going up the M1 or down the M1. You know, they're getting trains here, there and everywhere but no one's ever stopping and getting off and going in the town. And actually when you go in, it's a really interesting sort of post industrial sort of post war landscape. It's part of the reason why we went with Black and White in the end was to kind of like elevate that environment and kind of make, hopefully make the audience or allow the audience to feel about the town, how the boys feel about the town. Because all the boys in the film are first time actors from the area.
[14:58]
Mark Kermode
Terrific casting, incidentally. Oh, was it, was it a difficult casting process?
[15:04]
Imran Perretta
I mean it was such a privilege being amongst all those lads for like what ended up being probably about nine months. So we saw like what, 900 or so boys. And to change track slightly, these two, the two leads, Farhan Hasnat who plays Ish, and Yahya Kitana who plays Maram. They're mates in real life and we didn't know. So we got through to the final round of casting and the chemistry between them was totally unreal. Like we just couldn't believe it. And I said to them, we knew at this point that they kind of, they didn't know, but we knew that they got it. And I said to them that was just. We were in bits. That was unreal. Like it's like you guys have known each other for your whole lives and they're like, I mean, yeah, we have. And I was like, what do you mean? I was like, what do you mean? And they said, well, you know, we've known each other since nursery. Well, you kept that quite quiet for nine months. And so, you know, the film gods were really shining on us because they kept it cool. They probably thought it was going to count against them. Of course, by the time we got to the end of the process. They were just so natural with each other and they wind each other up like no one's business. And let me tell you, they've shaved years off my life, I'm happy to say that on the record. But they're wonderful, wonderful young men, these two and the other three boys. And yeah, if they weren't best mates already, they're best mates now.
[16:20]
Mark Kermode
Very good. I asked you to choose an inspirational film and you chose a film which is a favorite of mine. The director has been on the show many times and it was interesting because it was a film that I had in my head when watching your film, because there is a particular shot which seems to me to be a specific kind of at least a nod towards it. What did you choose?
[16:38]
Imran Perretta
I chose Rat Catcher by Lynn Ramsey.
[16:41]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, so the sequence that we're going to play is the sequence when he's in. He's in the house, which is not yet finished. And it's. People may know this, but it's worth seeing on the big screen again because it is so magical.
[16:56]
Advertisement Voice
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[17:13]
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[17:44]
Mark Kermode
take a look.
[18:23]
Imran Perretta
It's incredible.
[18:25]
Mark Kermode
Did you have that in mind when you were making Ish? Were you thinking about that at all?
[18:28]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I mean, you kind of have a compendium of coming of age movies in your head when you're kind of getting into one. And I think the thing is about Ratcatcher for me is there's so many. It's not so much about the narrative, it's about those incredibly small gestures that Lyn's able to kind of bring out, like the pissing in the toilet and all that sort of stuff. But there's another scene that really always stood out to me, which is when the young man scratches his shoes up that he's been given as a gift. And it's like the thing that I find so compelling about her filmmaking is one. It's like the. There's like such a rigorous sort of formalism to it, despite it feeling so free. It's kind of Terrence Malik does it as well. But the main thing, there's definitely a
[19:09]
Mark Kermode
bit of Badlands in there, right?
[19:10]
Imran Perretta
Yeah. And Days of Heaven, you know, all that sort of stuff, like the big old landscape and all this. But the thing that really does it for me is, is like the attention that she pays to small gestures and how true they feel. You know, that whole sequence just feels.
[19:21]
Jason Isaacs
Feels so true.
[19:22]
Imran Perretta
It's exactly the type of thing a kid would do. And she gives it so much time and space and like respect and love. And I think Ish was about that for me, was like so much about being in these boys midst and trying to just get out the way and just let them do their thing. So that what we see on screen felt as true as it possibly could. And that is so much from watching Gas man, from watching Rat Catcher, you know, Lin is very much like, you know, an inspiration.
[19:48]
Mark Kermode
Do you know what you're gonna do next?
[19:50]
Imran Perretta
Oh, man, I don't know. Well, I've got a show coming up in at the Tate. Yeah.
[19:54]
Mark Kermode
And so that's. That's on from when?
[19:57]
Imran Perretta
From the 20th of July. Right.
[19:59]
Mark Kermode
And you're gonna be doing a Q and A here at the BFI with Ish.
[20:02]
Imran Perretta
Yes, quite a few. The main one is on the 29th of July, and the boys are gonna introduce the film.
[20:07]
Mark Kermode
Wow. Fantastic. That's gonna shake you. Very good.
[20:11]
Jason Isaacs
Okay, great.
[20:12]
Imran Perretta
And then the film's out the. On 31st of July.
[20:15]
Mark Kermode
Great. And have you got. Have you got something else in the pipeline other than the show? Have you got another feature in you?
[20:19]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I reckon.
[20:20]
Mark Kermode
So is it Star wars
[20:24]
Imran Perretta
maybe? No, of course not.
[20:26]
Mark Kermode
That is what happens, you know, that's how it works. You make an independent film, it's big smash, and they give you Star Wars. That's how it works. And they. They mess you up. But they say it's you, but it's just a thing. They'll give you a Star Wars.
[20:34]
Imran Perretta
Well, do you know what, mate? If they do, I'll give you a call.
[20:37]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. I want you, you know, so when you, when, when you make your next feature, whether it's a Star wars or not, you come back on the show
[20:45]
Imran Perretta
and talk about it anytime.
[20:46]
Mark Kermode
And will you carry on composing because it seems to me that your composition and your filmmaking are absolutely intertwined. And I think it's good because, you know, there is a. There is a strange history of filmmakers who have composed. Goes back to Charlie Chaplin, obviously. You know who was the only Oscar Charlie Chaplin ever won competitively was for composition.
[21:02]
Imran Perretta
No way.
[21:03]
Paige
Yeah.
[21:04]
Mark Kermode
And it's. I know, crazy, right?
[21:06]
Imran Perretta
But.
[21:06]
Mark Kermode
So there. But it's a. It is a small John Carpenter. There is a small body of people who compose and direct. And it seems to me that for you, those two things are absolutely intertwined.
[21:16]
Imran Perretta
I'm just trying to be Mark Jenkins, to be honest.
[21:18]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, well. And of course, Mark does indeed compose for his own films and he's currently in the IMAX showing Rosa Nevada. Well, listen, congratulations on the film and I look forward to its great success in the cinema. I hope that it's absolutely packed when you do the Q and A here with the boys in introducing the film. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
[21:33]
Imran Perretta
Thank you.
[21:34]
Mark Kermode
Thank you. Now, you may or may not have noticed that Wimbledon's been on. And whilst Wimbledon's been on, people have been looking for interesting things to focus in on, including this. We'll sort it in post. Including this. Okay. George Clooney, obviously. So I was thinking, that's Jason Isaac spending an awful lot of time in Wimbledon. We've got a show at the bfi. That means he's in London. So I literally texted him and went, are you in London? Because he's never in London. He's always running around the world filming one of the eight projects that he's done since the last time we spent spoke. Anyway, he said, yes, I am here. Ladies and gentlemen, hello to Jason Isaacs.
[22:44]
Advertisement Voice
Hello.
[22:45]
Jason Isaacs
You didn't ask me for a scene that I like. So I came in tribute Bob Peck shorts from Jurassic Park. Very good.
[22:51]
Mark Kermode
Well done.
[22:52]
Jason Isaacs
Well done. I came straight from work. I would have dressed up for you. Thank you.
[22:55]
Mark Kermode
What's the Wimbledon thing? Are you huge?
[22:56]
Jason Isaacs
I'm a mad tennis fan.
[22:58]
Advertisement Voice
I love.
[22:58]
Jason Isaacs
I love Tonis. Always been a tennis fan and I love the drama and psychology of it. I mean, most people who love sport love the characters. And what I love about. I play a lot of tennis and it's one of the few times I suddenly turned this into a therapy session. Now, one of the few times I'm completely present and the other time is when I'm not myself and someone says, action. When I'm completely in the world and not in the past or in the future, my mind is playing a million Tricks on me. There's something about playing tennis and watching tennis that, yes, they can all hit the ball, they can move their arms around. But what I'm intrigued by, because I do it so much, I go to so many tournaments and I even know some of the players stuff, is what their inner dialogue is. What are they saying to themselves when they're losing? Or what are they saying to us when they have a bad relationship with their coach? What are they saying to themselves when they know that they're going to win? How do people. And when you act, that is what you do. And there's a misconception in the public that you do and say the things that are on the page, but what you're really doing, what you're paid for, I guess the job is, is to fill up the world of the inside that isn't on the page, that makes the outside make sense. And that's what I'm intrigued by. When I watched the tennis plays, I was at the men's and ladies singles finals and on the Wimbledon radio. Not that this isn't magnificent, but the great ambition left for me professionally is to commentate on tennis. It was close. I was chatting about it. I actually, a couple of years ago, I was at the US Open with the head of the Tennis channel. He said, do you want a show? You love tennis. Do you want a show? And I said, yeah, I could do one. Maybe I could inter. I could play tennis, like desert island disc. Play tennis with celebrities. And then that's just a bit of montage where we sit down in between. I could say, when did you first play tennis? How'd you get into it and learn about their life that way? And he went, I love that show. Let's do it. And I went, solid. I don't actually want that. I want to commentate. And he went, don't be a fucking idiot who wants to listen to you talk about tennis? And I said, well, I could bring the layperson and, you know, attitude at the booth. He went, no, I've got the world's greatest tennis players doing that.
[24:46]
Mark Kermode
Yeah. Is it possible to explain what it is about tennis that brings that thing? Because, I mean, when we were at school together. So I've said this for a week,
[24:55]
Jason Isaacs
although I'm so much younger than you. It's weird, isn't it?
[24:57]
Mark Kermode
I know, I know, George, you always
[25:07]
Jason Isaacs
make yourself older with the same age, and you're always on that bloody show. Not that I love your show, I love your podcast saying that you're a year older. Than you are. What is that strange tick you have out of your arms?
[25:17]
Mark Kermode
I'll tell you why it is. There is an actual answer to that, which is, firstly, I can't remember how old I am. And secondly, no. And secondly, the good lady professor, her indoors is older than I am.
[25:28]
Jason Isaacs
You're trying to make her feel better.
[25:29]
Mark Kermode
No, it's because I imagine that we have been together for so long, as have you and your partner. I kind of think we're the same age. So when people say, how old? Here's what happens. I go on the radio, I say, I'm 63. Which, incidentally, I am now 63. I go, I'm 63. And my phone goes ping. And it's you and Dave Norris going, you're not 63.
[25:49]
Jason Isaacs
Don't rush it. It's all coming anyway, for God's sake.
[25:51]
Mark Kermode
But is it possible to say what it is about tennis? That is.
[25:55]
Jason Isaacs
It's a warrior sport. It's an individual sport. But they do this strange thing where they warm up with each other and they care about each other. They travel with each other. So they're both friendly and close and also rivals. And it's a weird thing. Acting is, you know, it is a group exercise. You're only ever as good as the other people in the scene, and you can only ever be lifted by the great script. It's a totally ensemble thing. And yet it's also, in a strange way, competitive. You know, you all lift each other by doing your best. You want everyone else to be great, but you also, you know, are aware. I remember sitting next to Ken Branagh in the makeup chair on Harry Potter, and he said, how's it going, darling? I said, I think. I think I'm being very big. And he went, look up. You'll see the soles of my shoes. You know, we all knew we had five minutes per film, so you always wanted, you know, milking the 12th udder of it all, you know, So. I don't know. There's something about that. They're out there alone. They're young. I know some of these places. They're really young, and they're making these tough decisions. And also, it's cruel. The inner life fascinates me, as I know it does you, when. Whenever I'm meeting someone, talking to someone, I always want to know really what makes them tick. That's why I'm an actor, or that's why I'm involved in the storytelling business, what is going on inside people's heads.
[27:04]
Mark Kermode
But there's also this weird thing, like.
[27:06]
Jason Isaacs
I digress for a second. I didn't know. Mostly I knew Sean's work. Who I'm a massive fan of hers and I can't wait to see that. Reminded me of the comeback of it as well.
[27:13]
Mark Kermode
Oh, right.
[27:13]
Paige
Yeah.
[27:14]
Jason Isaacs
But the other two I didn't know. And I cannot wait to see your films. They just look incredible. And I'm telling you right now, I'm available. Whatever it is that you do, I would like to work with you. We know we're going to talk about AI in a minute. And I realize now why you were reacted so poorly, as if some. I'm not an AI advocate at all. I just know a bit about it that is a staggeringly beautiful. Reminded me a bit of the stuff I learned during the salt path about how nature and walking in nature can be of such enormous benefit. It turns out the Japanese let you go. Not let you go, sorry, feel sick. In Japan, they can prescribe forest bathing for you. They can send you out rangers who make you hug trees and roll. And then just very recently was a report about trees releasing some kind of spores that they actually can measure now. So not only your biological markers improve when you're near trees, but they understand, they think they understand why. And it's not spiritual, it's purely physical. So that was a.
[28:05]
Mark Kermode
There is an.
[28:06]
Jason Isaacs
I can't wait to see that film. How the fuck can I swear on your podcast?
[28:09]
Mark Kermode
Go ahead. You were the first person to ever swear in an English class.
[28:14]
Jason Isaacs
Sorry?
[28:14]
Mark Kermode
Literally, you were the first person that ever swear in an English. No, I thought you were Superman. You literally swore in an English class and didn't get sent to detention. How did he do it anyway? So carry on.
[28:26]
Jason Isaacs
Like I just do now.
[28:27]
Mark Kermode
Exactly.
[28:27]
Jason Isaacs
Those geese, are they geese? Snow geese or something? Was someone with a character free falling or something? How the hell were they?
[28:33]
Mark Kermode
He's in a glider and he's leading them, you know, like flyaway home. He's showing them the way home because they're following the glider. It's a real thing. It's a real, real thing actually, actually, genuinely happens. I've completely lost my thread now. Yes, I was gonna say you weren't. You weren't particularly into sport when we were. When we were.
[28:50]
Advertisement Voice
Did you.
[28:51]
Jason Isaacs
No, no. Look, I travel as an actor. It's a weird thing. You know, I was thinking recently, my wife has a huge group of friends locally where we live, all the women and I have people that I love. And often when you work with people and making films, you get Very close to people. I actually don't see the very few people who I would still call my close friends very much because I'm away a lot and the last year I've been making things back to back to back, and I. And I haven't seen the people I like, apart from on FaceTime, an awful lot. So what was the question?
[29:18]
Mark Kermode
Tell us what the things you've been doing because you.
[29:20]
Jason Isaacs
Oh, no, no. You don't know about that.
[29:21]
Mark Kermode
No, no.
[29:21]
Jason Isaacs
These are films that aren't coming out.
[29:23]
Mark Kermode
All right, just. Just give us a few, sort of just.
[29:25]
Jason Isaacs
Oh, no, I know there is. So I pack a tennis racket when I go places and it's one of the things.
[29:29]
Mark Kermode
Interviewing you is like wrestling in Anaconda. It's like,
[29:35]
Jason Isaacs
I made a bunch. So what happened with it? You know, I did White Lotus for a long time. Seven months. And then we did publicity.
[29:40]
Mark Kermode
Congratulations on the nominations. Well done. Should have won. You were robbed.
[29:43]
Jason Isaacs
Whatever. You know what's nice is that we were nominated for everything, all of us, all the time. And thank Christ nobody won because it would have been very awkward if anybody won anything. We nominated about 800 awards and we all went home empty handed.
[29:53]
Imran Perretta
Excellent.
[29:54]
Jason Isaacs
We're known as the white losers now anyway, by the way, let's. I'm not under any illusion when people go say it's very flattering or something, you know, what we did, or people are nice to me. It's not a coincidence that every year everybody in the White Lotus gets nominated. It's because Mike White creates three dimensional human characters that people want to see and relate to. And he's not developed in the sense that people don't. They're not interfering with what he writes and why he writes. He doesn't write to make a political point. He doesn't. These characters aren't ciphers or symbols. He writes and they almost reveal themselves to him. And now, of course, they leave him completely alone. And that's why everyone's nominated every year, because the writing is so pretty brilliant. His directing is so brilliant.
[30:34]
Mark Kermode
So what to tell us about some of the projects you've been.
[30:37]
Jason Isaacs
I didn't work for ages. My point, I just spent the entire time in hotel rooms or go to tennis clubs and then talking about this thing again and again and again and again. So I then thought, and we're empty nesters, both of us are kids around the house. And I thought, sod it, I'm just going to work now. And I've done back to back to back. So I went, I Did Victorian Psycho. Did you see that? No, it came out. So it came out. It was in Cannes and it's coming out in America a couple months. It came out here.
[30:58]
Mark Kermode
I'll see when it to comes coming out here.
[31:00]
Jason Isaacs
And then I did the Julia set, which reunited me with Gillian Anderson, which was fun.
[31:05]
Mark Kermode
And you made the Salt Path, which is only now coming out in America.
[31:07]
Jason Isaacs
Coming out in America. It's going to be interesting doing publicity for the Salt Path, now that there's been. I said, are you sure you want us to do publicity? They went, absolutely. And I went, okay, yeah, fine. I think it's a beautiful film. I think that, you know, much of it is still completely valid. Obviously, some of the things have been questioned. It's going to be an interesting experience. And then I did Guy Ritchie's film, which was really. It's called Viva La Madness, A Jason Statham film, which I know you're a huge state fan.
[31:34]
Mark Kermode
I am.
[31:35]
Jason Isaacs
Actually got to squeeze his breast there. Made a mahogany. It's a remarkable thing. His nipples are chest pawns. But in the film, I actually do. And then, just as a dig at me, Guy said, we got. And I'm going, jesus, you're not a vegan, are you? Because I'm a vegan. But anyway, I did that, and it was interesting. I don't know what you know or think or have heard about working with Guy.
[31:57]
Mark Kermode
Well, I know nothing about what. Working with him at all.
[32:00]
Jason Isaacs
So I'd heard these rumors. Oh, he doesn't come out the trailer. And as if somehow he's disinterested because he has many, many projects going on at the same time. He's making the Gentleman, he's making Young Show. It's true. He has a trailer with giant screens. And he's incredibly interested in micro detail, but also incredibly empowering. He goes, you got a big idea, Go for it. I did. It's not an enormous part. And I want. I said, look, if I'm going to be in one of your films, you. Your films have a history of some big characters that you remember. We all remember Brad Pitt and Snatch and stuff. And I went, I want to make some really big, bold choices like Sean was talking about. And I don't come off or not. And the first day I didn't, he went, jesus Christ, I don't know, man, that is very big. I went, I know. And he went, if. Let's go with it, and if I decide in the end I don't like it, will you come in and try and change a Lot of it. And I went, sure, hope you don't. And he was very. On the third day, he went, no, let's just go with it. And I. So wait, I want to say what I've done in it, but it is. It's not normal.
[32:53]
Mark Kermode
Have you seen. Have you seen.
[32:54]
Jason Isaacs
Anyway, what does he say?
[32:55]
Mark Kermode
Have you seen the finished thing?
[32:56]
Jason Isaacs
No, No, I haven't. But I was there on the set, and I really liked what he was. Really interesting, guys. A very opinionated person, happy to talk about anything, be challenged. Actually so interested in having interesting conversations that he let someone else set the shot up and then comes in and is fully involved in every frame of it. So it's nonsense. He sits in the trailer. And I found it much more creative and fulfilling than I thought. I thought, oh, it's a gangster film. It'll be the thing I imagine I'd slot into the template. But no, he gives people a lot of freedom to try things out. And then I did Tomb Raider with your old fleabag mate. With Phoebe, who runs Tomb Raider and really runs it, you can really feel it's her show. I went from one of the most male environments you can imagine, a Guy Ritchie film, and Jason and the rest of them, to Phoebe's set, which is extremely. Phoebe's set and Tomb Raider. And she's reinvented that with Sophie completely. And then I did a tiny, beautiful indie film in Dublin, which is the indie. These are big films, guys. Film. And Tomb Raider did a tiny film with a crew of, you know, half a dozen people called Silverback, in which I had to be from Dublin, doing a cabra accent. And if anyone is from Dublin, I'm so sorry. I did my very best. Everybody else was from Dublin, so I did it all the time. All day, every day.
[34:08]
Mark Kermode
You've got a great ear fracture.
[34:09]
Jason Isaacs
It's okay.
[34:10]
Mark Kermode
No, I'm sorry. You've always had a. And one of the things that you got into trouble for was when you were doing White Lotus, the accent that you were doing was absolutely bang on. And then people were going, oh, that accent's not right. You go, yes, it was.
[34:21]
Jason Isaacs
All the people from the town I was doing got in touch with, say, people from other states. So there's not some. No. So similarly, this is not just meant to be Dublin. It's meant to be for one place in cabra. And there was a guy, a driver, and I did him. But. But I found myself doing it all day, every day, and doing it in the shops as well, and doing it when I play tennis my day off. And so if anybody ever listens to this podcast, think what the fuck was that English actor doing when I met him in the street? I'm sorry, I know it's a bit pretentious, but it's how it works, you know. And then I did oh Gundam. I did a couple of these things with these very sexy young Netflix Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo. You know who that is? Most people too old here to know my kids knew was who it which is big robots bashing each other thing and
[35:09]
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[36:06]
Jason Isaacs
Lily, what else did I do? I did something else. My lovely publicity.
[36:09]
Paige
I don't know if there's anything else.
[36:10]
Jason Isaacs
I can't remember.
[36:10]
Mark Kermode
Anyway, anything else that you're allowed to talk about.
[36:12]
Jason Isaacs
The point is.
[36:13]
Mark Kermode
The point is you're working all the time.
[36:15]
Jason Isaacs
I really loved it, but I'm away from home an awful lot.
[36:17]
Mark Kermode
Which is weird because you don't like being away from home, but you're a workaholic.
[36:22]
Jason Isaacs
I really love working with first time directors. Really like young people. It's as you can tell, you know, I maintain a tremendous childishness in my work and childlike behavior.
[36:33]
Mark Kermode
Oh, childish was right.
[36:34]
Jason Isaacs
And when I was in. So I was in Australia making this film with much younger actors taking it very seriously. They're at a different point in their career. They're trying to build stuff and they were a bit thrown by how much I felt. It seemed like I was not taking it seriously. And then bit by bit we talked about it quite, you know, a lot and I watched them do some of the things that I've picked up from much better actors, which is behave a bit like an idiot and a child on set so you can stay loose so that anything can happen. Feels like anything can happen. There's a script. But nonetheless, if you're lucky enough to have talented directors, as Jim, who was directing Gundam, was, if you feel like if you're loose enough not to feel constricted by what's on the page, you might suddenly go off somewhere else because, you know you're allowed to and you feel in the part. So, yeah, I've had a really lovely time for the last year and work back to back. It will stop soon because you don't have a run of luck like this.
[37:21]
Mark Kermode
I don't know. One of the things that's happened is that there is a book coming out about Event Horizon and there's been an awful lot of interest in Event Horizon. Of course, in Event Horizon you worked with Sam Neill, who we lost yesterday. Yeah, exactly.
[37:34]
Jason Isaacs
Yeah. Really sad.
[37:35]
Mark Kermode
I wanted to just show a clip from Event Horizon because people talk about Event Horizon all the time and it's one of those things. And you said the same was true of Peter Pan. You make a film that at the time that it comes out, people are very sniffy about, and then 20 years later, everyone.
[37:49]
Jason Isaacs
Very sniffy is a nice way of saying it was a catastrophic flop. No, I'll tell you about Horizon before you show it. Larry Gordon produced it, one of the great legendary producers, and he said, here's what we're going to do when it comes out. We're going to get in a limo, we're going to go around. We had a big premiere party on the opening night. We're going to drive around to all the cinemas and we're going to go stand in the back, watch people scream, watch people laugh. Then we'll go for a meal. So we all get in a stretch limo. It's me and Jolie and Laurence Fishburne and Sam and everyone, Sean Pertwin. We get in the car and we go to the first cinema of the Sen. And Larry gets out, speaks. The box office comes back, he goes, let's just go for dinner. So we go there.
[38:22]
Advertisement Voice
What?
[38:22]
Jason Isaacs
He goes, yeah. No, let's just. No, it's fine. Let's just go for dinner. We knew it wasn't going to be a great night, but it has become a massive success over the years. Many, many fans of it, including Tarantino. I just. The other thing I saw that I did a improvised Film with Jamie Adams who does he's one films in Wales with Tarantino and Kylie and Alison Williams and Hugh Lovely Hughes in the audience. And he was going on about Paul Anderson. What a big fan he is of Paul Anderson.
[38:49]
Mark Kermode
I'm just quickly show a clip from Ben Horizon.
[38:52]
Jason Isaacs
So if the ship didn't blow up, then what happened?
[38:54]
Audience Member or Assistant
Well, the mission was going perfectly, like a textbook. They reached safe distance using conventional thrusters. All systems look good. They had the good go ahead to use the gravity drive to open the gateway to Proxima Centauri and then they just disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Until now.
[39:15]
Mark Kermode
Where has she been for the last seven years, Doctor?
[39:18]
Audience Member or Assistant
That's what we're here to find out. Now we've been unable to verify live contact. The TDRs did receive this single transmission. The hell is that? Listen to this. Houston passed same recording through several filters. Managed to isolate what appears to be a human voice. Not even sure if it qualifies as language.
[40:01]
Mark Kermode
Latin.
[40:02]
Jason Isaacs
What I think sounds like Latin.
[40:06]
Mark Kermode
Can you translate it?
[40:07]
Jason Isaacs
Say it again. Okay. You hear that? Sounds like Liberate may.
[40:22]
Audience Member or Assistant
Something.
[40:23]
Jason Isaacs
I don't know, I can't make out the rest.
[40:24]
Mark Kermode
Liberate May.
[40:27]
Jason Isaacs
Save me. Jesus,
[40:32]
Advertisement Voice
it's great.
[40:33]
Jason Isaacs
My grandson.
[40:34]
Mark Kermode
It's great.
[40:34]
Jason Isaacs
My grandson on the screen up there. It is really good. It was great. God, all those people. So Sam was. What's odd? Not odd, fabulous about Sam. He plays these very establishment figures. He was the most fun, most trouble seeking, fabulous, disruptive fella. He always wanted to know where the party was. Always that he was always the last person to leave. And it's odd that he plays those characters. I remember there's a scene in which we're all in shorts. We'll be incubated in a pod or something. We get out. I love the fact I said, Paul, I can smoke. In the future they find out where you can smoke and it doesn't hurt. Yeah, I can do that then.
[41:05]
Paige
So.
[41:06]
Jason Isaacs
So I spoke and. And we all get out the pods. But you know, I was about 12, as was Sean and the others were slightly older. So they all pulled the things up stomach in. And one said, where's the frame? Where's the frame? And we all like walking around because at the time we all had these flat tummies like that. I wouldn't be doing it now. We had a good time. It was like a play because it was the same actors every day. And we never went to that huge set. Beautiful set.
[41:31]
Mark Kermode
It's a real set.
[41:31]
Jason Isaacs
Stunning design. There were two sets. There was the event horizon. There was a Lewis and Clark, the safe place. And the event horizon was a dark and strange and mysterious. It was a kind of Gothic cathedral. And I think they put organic material on the walls which actually rotted and smelt. So it was a place you didn't really want to go. The eventual. It felt like a creepy place to go to. Yeah. No. Sam was a team leader and always wanted to know where the party was. Yeah, it's a great loss. He was a wonderful actor. It might have been the first time I saw someone do this thing that you see a lot on screen. When we did that scene, I couldn't hear him. He was whispering and I thought, wasn't someone going to say something to it? Like, he's. That's never going to work. And not only does it work, he's completely enigmatic and charismatic in this thing.
[42:09]
Mark Kermode
Now, I had nominally got you on here to talk about what's happening with AI in Hollywood.
[42:14]
Jason Isaacs
I only came so I could look for work with those two creators. Exactly.
[42:17]
Mark Kermode
So what I realize is that you're gonna have to come back and do the great Jason AI thing.
[42:21]
Jason Isaacs
Okay, well, let me just say this. Give us a short. I'm not an advocate for AI no, no, no. It's a disgraceful thing. And ecologically, it's gonna destroy the planet. There are many worrying things about it. It is a fact that many people in Hollywood who have been very loud, vocal noises against it are behind the scenes and working to train. There's so much unemployment there. People are now training the models. And it's also true as a mode of entry. And I don't say you can park the ecological damage it's doing, but you used to have to have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 pounds to make a short. Now you can shoot your friends on your iPhone and with a little bit of AI help, it looks like a 50 grand short or $100 million short. So it's. The gatekeepers have gone as a price of entry. I hope that it doesn't take over. I was on a big set in Australia and I was talking with the other people around who were some. You know, it's Netflix, a big film. There'll be kind of executives around, the directors going, it may well be that we're seeing the last time that people have build giant sets and have loads of crew. I think that would be a tragic and terrible thing. But it is nonetheless a reality that film schools are changing their syllabus to acknowledge the fact this technology exists. And we're going to have to work with it and use it and try and find responsible ways of using it because it's dumb to pretend that it isn't. And the stuff that it's making, stuff that allows you to make, if you're a visionary and still know what pictures you want to tell is completely undetectable, there's no difference between that and real things. It's sad but true. And so to bury your head in the sand reminds me when I first started acting and those people who were edited on celluloid said, I don't buy this non linear stuff, this avid stuff. It's nonsense. You've got to feel the film. Well, if they didn't learn how to use a mouse and proper things, they were no longer editors. So it's just a reality that it's happening. And young filmmakers, young would be filmmakers, even young actors need to learn those tools.
[43:59]
Mark Kermode
Okay, I would genuinely like you to come back on and talk about this at greater length because I know you have a lot to say about it. And it is, I'll say this, one
[44:06]
Jason Isaacs
of the big agencies in Hollywood, and there's only a couple, are already sending their clients to record their digital images in anticipation of renting or licensing those things out. So for all the noises they're making in public, in private, everyone is acknowledging that something is coming. Massive change is coming. Okay. But what's great is people will be able to make smaller films and maybe even reach the public directly without the old gatekeepers.
[44:28]
Mark Kermode
I tell you what we're going to do. Do you want to just come back every month? Because we can just have a regular.
[44:34]
Jason Isaacs
Let's all just go.
[44:35]
Mark Kermode
Should we do that? Should we just have Jason on every month? Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Isaac.
[44:42]
Advertisement Voice
Thank you very much.
[44:50]
Mark Kermode
That's it for this week's edition of Kermit on Film. Thanks to my guests Imran Perretta and Jason Isaacs. If you missed it, you can hear the other half of this month MK3D on last week's Kermit on Film, when I talked to Ed sayers about his Super 8 feature Super Nature, and to the brilliant Sian Clifford about her starring role in the Mock doc Lady. We take a break over August, but from September, MK3D is live at the BFI South bank every month. If you'd like to join us, tickets are available at the BFI website. For more conversations from me and Simon Mayo, head over to Kermode Mayo's take wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Keep watching the skies.
[45:29]
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[46:01]
Mark Kermode
Hello, this is Simon Mayo and this is Mark kermode. He's the UK's best and most trusted film critic. He's a best selling writer, broadcast podcaster and national treasure.
[46:10]
Audience Member or Assistant
Far too kind.
[46:11]
Mark Kermode
Kermit and Mayo's take has all the reviews you need and star guests such as Sir Ian McKellen.
[46:17]
Jason Isaacs
Nice to be with you.
[46:18]
Mark Kermode
Emma Stone that sounds like something I
[46:20]
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would love to be a part of.
[46:21]
Mark Kermode
Ewan McGregor I'm very good.
[46:22]
Audience Member or Assistant
How are you doing?
[46:23]
Mark Kermode
Kate Blanchett what was that word you used?
[46:25]
Jason Isaacs
Cattywampus?
[46:26]
Mark Kermode
Kermita Mayors take all the film you need available wherever you get your podcasts.

Summary7 min read

Kermode on Film — Jason Isaacs says hello and Imran Perretta talks about ISH

Host: Mark Kermode
Guests: Imran Perretta (filmmaker/artist), Jason Isaacs (actor)
Date: August 4, 2026
Recorded live at: BFI Southbank, London

Episode Overview

This episode is the second half of the July 2026 MK3D live show at BFI Southbank. Mark Kermode is joined by multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Imran Perretta to discuss his feature film ISH, fresh from much critical acclaim, and by the ever-inimitable Jason Isaacs, who shares career updates, memories, and musings on acting, sport, and the impact of AI on film. The episode covers the creative origins of ISH, the intricacies of casting and sound design, reflections on place and identity, Jason Isaacs’s prolific run of recent projects, and a thoughtful conversation about changes in the industry.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Imran Perretta and the Making of ISH

(Introduced at 03:45)

Imran on His Creative Identity

Perretta considers himself an "artist" first, which he calls the most freeing label:

“The great thing about that job title is you can kind of do anything you want… flip between the art world, the music world and now the film world.” (04:20)

From Art Piece to Feature Film

ISH traces its roots to a two-screen art piece, The Destructors, soon to be installed at Tate Britain.
A specific chapter, depicting a young man ready to run from police, reflected Perretta’s teenage experiences and became the “jumping off point” for ISH after BBC Films’ interest.

Themes Explored in ISH

Coming of Age: Two protagonists’ diverging paths, capturing “the cusp of childhood and adulthood.”
Surveillance, Islamophobia, and Social Anxiety:

“Living in a hostile environment has an effect on your body, you’re always ready to run.” (05:20)
Universal Loss:

“It’s about heartbreak and loss… what it means to have that first heartbreak of losing your best friend… that never leaves you." (12:13)

Melding Sound and Story

Perretta composed the score himself, blending playground sounds (hand clapping, body percussion) and medieval English folk music:

“To me, hand clapping is the soundtrack of being in the playground… also the sound of people embracing… I hoped to bring together ancient music and contemporary body sounds as a way of talking about Englishness.” (10:39)
Mark praises the soundtrack as “storytelling in itself… generated by the world of the film” (11:53).

On Luton as Setting

Luton, often seen as a place to pass through, is defended as soulful:

“It’s always seen as a terminal and never as a destination… but actually, if you look hard enough, it’s an amazingly soulful and interesting place.” (13:29)
Filming in black and white aims to show the town as the characters experience it.

Casting Process & Chemistry

Over 900 boys auditioned, resulting in the casting of Farhan Hasnat and Yahya Kitana—real-life friends who only later revealed their lifelong bond:

“The film gods were really shining on us… they wind each other up like no one’s business… they’ve shaved years off my life!” (15:04)

Influences: Ratcatcher and Small Gestures

Imran chose Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher as his inspirational film, particularly for its way of capturing “small gestures,” rigorously formal yet free:

“Ish was about that for me… just getting out the way and letting the boys do their thing, so it felt as true as it possibly could.” (19:22)

2. Future Projects & Multidisciplinary Practice

(19:47 – 21:33)

Perretta’s work, including The Destructors, is on show at Tate from July 20.
ISH releases July 31 with a Q&A at BFI on July 29, introduced by its young stars.
Mark notes Perretta’s “intertwined” composing and filmmaking — making him part of a rare tradition:

“There’s a small body of people who compose and direct… Charlie Chaplin, John Carpenter, Mark Jenkins.” (21:06)

3. Jason Isaacs: On Tennis, Acting, and Work

(22:44 – 37:20)

Life as a Tennis Fan

Jason reveals his passion for tennis, drawing a parallel with acting:

“When I act… what you’re really doing is filling up the world of the inside that isn’t on the page, that makes the outside make sense.” (23:18)
Dreamed of commentating on tennis; prefers analyzing the psychology of matches over “doing and saying” scripted things.

On Companionship and Rivalry

He and Mark joke about their age and childhood, segueing into the competitive-but-supportive nature of both tennis and acting:

“It’s a warrior sport and yet they care about each other… Acting is an ensemble thing, but competitive too.” (25:54)

Recent Projects and Working On Set

Jason has been working “back to back”: The White Lotus, Victorian Psycho, The Julia Set (with Gillian Anderson), The Salt Path, a Guy Ritchie movie (Viva La Madness), Tomb Raider (with Phoebe Waller-Bridge), and a tiny indie in Dublin, Silverback.
He enjoys working with first-time directors and younger actors:

“I maintain a tremendous childishness in my work and childlike behavior… behave like an idiot and a child on set so you can stay loose…” (36:21)

4. Reflections on Event Horizon and Sam Neill

(37:20 – 42:09)

Discussion prompted by a new book on Event Horizon and the recent passing of Sam Neill.
Jason shares stories from the set:

“We all get in a stretch limo on opening night… go to the first cinema, Larry Gordon says ‘let's just go for dinner.’ It wasn’t a great night.”
Event Horizon became a cult favorite, including among Tarantino.

5. On AI and the Future of Film

(42:09 – 44:28)

Jason is candid about the industry's ambivalence toward AI:

“It’s a disgraceful thing and ecologically it’s going to destroy the planet… But you used to need £50,000 to make a short; now with a little AI it looks like a $100m short.” (42:21)
Young filmmakers must learn to use AI as a tool, and change is inevitable.
Major agencies already recording digital likenesses for actors for future use.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Imran Perretta on belonging:

“The deep ache of that first heartbreak [with a friend] never leaves you… that’s so much a part of the passage from childhood into adulthood.” (12:13)
Jason Isaacs on acting:

“What you’re really doing… is to fill up the world of the inside that isn’t on the page, that makes the outside make sense.” (23:18)
Kermode, on Perretta’s musical style:

“The soundtrack sounds like it’s being generated by the world you’re watching.” (11:53)
Imran, on coming of age media:

“Ratcatcher… it’s not so much about narrative as about incredibly small gestures that Lyn [Ramsay] brings out… formal yet feels so free.” (18:28)
Jason Isaacs on Event Horizon and Sam Neill:

“Sam was the most fun, most trouble-seeking, fabulous, disruptive fella… always wanted to know where the party was.” (41:31)
On AI in the industry (Isaacs):

“To bury your head in the sand reminds me when I first started acting and those edited on celluloid didn’t buy this non-linear stuff. If they didn’t learn how to use a mouse… they were no longer editors.” (43:59)

Important Timestamps

03:45 — Imran Perretta joins, defining his artistic role
05:01 — Backstory: from art installations to feature film
07:39 — Perretta on composing for his own film
10:39 — Soundtrack: hand clapping, folk, and meaning
12:13 — ISH’s fundamental themes
13:29 — Why Luton? Discussion of place and perception
15:04 — Casting and real-life chemistry of leads
16:38 — Perretta’s pick: Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher
19:47 — On inspiration and future plans
21:16 — Composing-directing tradition
22:44 — Jason Isaacs enters, tennis metaphors meet acting
29:35 — Details of Isaacs's recent roles
37:20 — Reflections on Event Horizon & Sam Neill
42:09 — AI’s impact on film, pros & cons
43:59 — Agencies digitizing actors for future licensing

Tone and Style

True to Kermode’s lively, conversational style—the episode is filled with warmth, backstage stories, and playful ribbing, especially between longtime friends Mark and Jason. Imran Perretta’s earnestness and thoughtful reflections lend depth, while Jason Isaacs’s humor and candor make for an engaging listen. Both offer unique perspectives on creative practice, collaboration, and change within the film industry.

For Listeners/Readers

This episode is highly recommended for those interested in:

Behind-the-scenes of making a breakthrough British indie film
The intersection of art, music, and cinema
Honest accounts of acting, casting, and staying playful in the industry
Reflections on friendship, place, and growing up
A thoughtful look at technology’s impact—especially AI—on creative professions
Tales from a working actor’s peripatetic, project-packed life

Skip to 03:45 for main content.
ISH is released July 31, with special BFI screenings and Tate art show from July 20.

Loading summary

Transcript226 lines

[00:00]
Paige
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[00:50]
Jason Isaacs
must be done.
[00:50]
Advertisement Voice
There is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap.
[00:57]
Did you know that the very first
[00:59]
Jason Isaacs
assembly of photographs in sequential order to
[01:01]
Advertisement Voice
create a motion Picture was a 2 second clip of a black man on a horse?
[01:07]
Mark Kermode
We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here and we want them now.
[01:13]
Jason Isaacs
You really don't want me to play, huh? No, I do. Captain Howdy said no.
[01:18]
Mark Kermode
Captain who? Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Thanks for downloading this Kermode on Film podcast. This episode is the second half of the July 2026 MK3 show, recorded live at the BFI South bank in London. I'm joined by filmmaker and artist Imran Peretta to talk about his film Ish and by the inimitable Jason Isaacs. So sit back, relax and take a front row seat at MK3D recorded live at the BFI South bank in London. Enjoy. And again, another coming attraction opening in cinemas on 31st July. Take a look at this. This is a trailer for a film there's been a lot of interest in.
[01:56]
Audience Member or Assistant
Take a look at this.
[02:00]
Mark Kermode
Wait.
[02:01]
Advertisement Voice
Running.
[02:13]
Mark Kermode
Of all days. You're working on her anniversary.
[02:15]
Jason Isaacs
How does that make sense?
[02:17]
Imran Perretta
Don't say up to you late. All right.
[02:24]
Jason Isaacs
What? Decided you are. Other people are going to decide for all you wish you get me.
[02:50]
Audience Member or Assistant
One.
[02:51]
Jason Isaacs
It's just running left, bro.
[02:52]
Paige
Left me for dead.
[03:06]
Mark Kermode
Where is that boy? He's not calling around.
[03:14]
Advertisement Voice
Is.
[03:15]
Mark Kermode
Do you hear me? I don't want you anywhere near my.
[03:24]
Jason Isaacs
Respect you show me, huh? Spit it out then, big man.
[03:46]
Mark Kermode
It's getting terrific reviews and deservedly so. Please welcome artists, filmmaker and composer Imran Paretta. Welcome to the show. When I do that sort of multi hyphenate thing at the beginning. Which one do you think of yourself as? First visual artist, filmmaker, writer, composer, which is the first one,
[04:20]
Imran Perretta
probably artist, because it's where I started. And I think the great thing about that job title is you can kind of do anything you want, which has been a real boon for me because I get to kind of just indulge any creative urges I have. But it's been an amazing thing to kind of be able to variously flip between I guess, the art world, the music world and now the film world.
[04:43]
Mark Kermode
Now this has its basis in an art piece because you started exploring this in an art project. First explain to me how this. How we came to the point that we have this feature. Incidentally, it's wonderful. I know everyone's telling you this, but it is a really magnificent piece of work. So how did we get here?
[05:02]
Imran Perretta
Well, so I've been making moving image work in the art world for over a decade now. And I've kind of just existed making sort of weird experimental bits of. Of, you know, dual screen works. All kinds of like, things that expand the form, I guess what would broadly
[05:18]
Mark Kermode
be called visual installation or.
[05:20]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's a moving image. It's kind of like a weird sort of counterculture of its own. And I had made a piece called the Destructors, which incidentally is about to go on show at the Tate Britain. I was there all day today actually installing it. And that's a two screen piece. I don't want to explain too much about it. I think people have to go and see it. But there's a chapter or an act within that work about a young man who's sort of preparing to run from the police and what it means for him to live with the anxiety of not feeling safe. And this idea that living in the context of a surveillance state or in a hostile environment has an effect on your body, you're always ready to run. And it's something that comes from my own life, being a teenager. And so for me, the Destructors, that chapter kind of became the jumping off point for Ish. And I was lucky that the BBC film saw the Destructors when it was showing in London just before the pandemic. And they reached out to me to begin to start sort of thinking about, you know, what a narrative film could look like for me, of course, I had no idea, but I felt I should probably go back to something I knew. And it was that chapter from the Destructors, which in and of itself was a chapter from my own sort of my own youth, you know, my own teenage years.
[06:40]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, because I mean, in some ways it's a coming of age movie. It has two central protagonists, both going through a change which sees their paths dividing and we can kind of imagine the lives that they might lead afterwards. But Nick and I had made a series a while ago called Secrets of Cinema and one of the first ones we did was on coming of age movies. And I was saying to Nick after I'd seen this, if this had been around when we were making that, we would have basically just cannibalized this, you know, whole sections from it. Because it's a very hard thing to get right. That thing about, you know, the cusp of childhood and adulthood and there is a sense of anxiety that is captured brilliantly in this. And it's not just to do with the obvious elements, it's also to do with things like the soundtrack, like the way in which. Because you're a composer. Right. And I was listening, I confessed it when I was watching. I just imagined that there was a lot of collaboration. But you. The score is your score, right?
[07:39]
Imran Perretta
Yes.
[07:40]
Mark Kermode
So had you. Have you always been a musician?
[07:42]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I mean it's in a weird way, it's the thing I've done the longest. I mean, you know, I'm. Luckily for me, I went to a free music school, a council funded music school in South London between the ages of 8 and 10. You know, that doesn't exist anymore. And it was in the days where they'd buy you your instrument.
[07:58]
Mark Kermode
So what did you play?
[07:59]
Imran Perretta
Guitar. Still do. So that's the extent of my training was 8 to 10, so, you know, not much. I kind of started winging it after that. But I think, you know, it's. It's testament to where, you know that when the public sector is. I'm going to go off on a.
[08:15]
Mark Kermode
No, go ahead.
[08:15]
Imran Perretta
The public sector. But when you have a robust public sector and young people are able to access things like free Internet instruments, you know, in 20 odd years time, something like this can happen where you have a fluency and a sort of confidence creatively and it comes from people telling you that you can do it.
[08:32]
Mark Kermode
You know, I want to play a clip that Nick put together, which is a clip which amalgamates something from Destructors with an element of the feature film. And we put these two together because the soundtrack follows from one into the other. And I thought the soundtrack. I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about the soundtrack after we've Just seen these clips. So what you're first going to see, see is a moment from the project that you're talking about that's about to be at the tape Britain, and then from the feature film and you'll see why the two things have been put together. Okay.
[09:42]
Jason Isaacs
Would you want money?
[09:44]
Imran Perretta
Following me like a pagan, bro.
[09:51]
Jason Isaacs
As the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, urgent questions are being asked of the Israeli Prime Minister. In the midst of the ongoing violence, the unists urged the Israeli government to abide by its commitment to international. Israel faces accusations of enacting collective punishment in Gaza.
[10:14]
Advertisement Voice
Wow,
[10:19]
Imran Perretta
That was so cool.
[10:20]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, well, that was Nick, who put that together and.
[10:23]
Imran Perretta
Nice one, Nick.
[10:24]
Mark Kermode
I wrote a book about film music that came out last year. And again, if I'd seen your film before, I would have done an entire chapter on the way in which you've been using music. I think that the music is story to tell me about that thing. Tell me about the hand clapping and the voices. What's going on in that soundtrack?
[10:39]
Imran Perretta
Well, oh, gosh, it's a bit of a mad one, really. So to me, hand clapping is the soundtrack of being in the playground. You know, it's this. It's kind of, you know, the sort of patty cake things that you do and all this sort of stuff. But also it's the sound of like, people giving each other high fives or embracing. There's something about that. It kind of, to me, it's this great signifier for the ways in which teenagers can kind of interact with each other. And then in terms of the voices and all this sort of stuff, this came out of like a sort of, I guess, like a real creative obsession during the making of the soundtrack with, like, randomly medieval English folk music.
[11:15]
Mark Kermode
Of course.
[11:16]
Imran Perretta
Right. You know, and there's a whole story about that. I could drone on for ages about that. But anyway, I guess the signature, I hope, anyway, of the soundtrack is this kind of taking these sort of sounds that you'd associate with how young people exist in the contemporary moment and taking this, like, ancient sort of medieval English folk and kind of bringing them together in interesting formal ways. Because to me, it's about something to do with Englishness, about challenging that a little bit and about taking those kind of tropes of, like, really old music and bringing in these sounds of the body sounds of, like, young people relating to each other in the contemporary moment and sort of bringing them together in a weird way. And I hope it works.
[11:54]
Mark Kermode
There's also this kind of music, concrete element to it which is that the soundtrack sounds like it's being generated by the world that you're watching in the film. And I think that works so well because it's not like. It's like you feel like it is organically part of the thing you're watching. And I thought it was absolutely superb. What, for you, is the film fundamentally about, do you know?
[12:14]
Imran Perretta
It's about so many things. It's about, you know, all of the external things, like, you know, the surveillance state. It's about Islamophobia. It's about what it means for young people to kind of exist within the context of. Of, like, a poly crisis that we're sort of existing in at the moment, all that sort of stuff. But in the end, it's just about two young boys and it's about heartbreak and it's about loss. You know, it's about what it means to have that first heartbreak of losing your best friend. And, you know, how actually that is a tale as old as time. And though their existence is so specific to the geography of Luton, which is where the film is set, and also to their community, the British Muslim community, ultimately it's two young boys falling out. And I think, to me, that is, you know, I remember my falling out with my best mate. It's happened many times, right? You know, and there's something about the deep ache of that first heartbreak that never leaves you. But also, there's so much to learn from it and so much to kind of, you know, it is the coming of age. It's learning to deal with loss. You know, that's so much a part of the passage from childhood into adulthood. Is that reckoning with loss, you know,
[13:19]
Mark Kermode
what is it about Lewton? There's a moment in it when we see football supporters marching down the street chanting, lewton is shit. I want to go home. What is it about Lewton that works for the film?
[13:30]
Imran Perretta
Well, do you know what? I flipping love Lewton. And I think it's a sort of. You know, it's always seen as a sort of terminal and never as a destination. And actually, I think if you look hard enough, it's. It's an amazingly soulful and interesting place. It's had so much bad press to do with.
[13:47]
Mark Kermode
Why has it had bad press? Because it's one of those things like Stevenage. It's the same thing.
[13:51]
Imran Perretta
It sounds at the punch reading, you know.
[13:53]
Mark Kermode
No, but. Yeah, but. Which are all really perfectly nice places. And, you know, I mean, I grew up in Barnet, right? I love Barnet. If you say to me you know, I grew up in Barnet, they go, I'm very sorry for your loss, you know. So what is it about Luton that gets you in the field but that makes other people sing? It's shit and I want to go home.
[14:12]
Imran Perretta
Well, you know, there's a lot of. One is that I have some family there. I mean, also I'm from Streatham. I've had a whole lifetime of people telling me it's a shithole. So, you know, I know, I know it well, but I think for me it's one of those places again. It's a place that people pass through whether they're on the way to the airport or they're going up the M1 or down the M1. You know, they're getting trains here, there and everywhere but no one's ever stopping and getting off and going in the town. And actually when you go in, it's a really interesting sort of post industrial sort of post war landscape. It's part of the reason why we went with Black and White in the end was to kind of like elevate that environment and kind of make, hopefully make the audience or allow the audience to feel about the town, how the boys feel about the town. Because all the boys in the film are first time actors from the area.
[14:58]
Mark Kermode
Terrific casting, incidentally. Oh, was it, was it a difficult casting process?
[15:04]
Imran Perretta
I mean it was such a privilege being amongst all those lads for like what ended up being probably about nine months. So we saw like what, 900 or so boys. And to change track slightly, these two, the two leads, Farhan Hasnat who plays Ish, and Yahya Kitana who plays Maram. They're mates in real life and we didn't know. So we got through to the final round of casting and the chemistry between them was totally unreal. Like we just couldn't believe it. And I said to them, we knew at this point that they kind of, they didn't know, but we knew that they got it. And I said to them that was just. We were in bits. That was unreal. Like it's like you guys have known each other for your whole lives and they're like, I mean, yeah, we have. And I was like, what do you mean? I was like, what do you mean? And they said, well, you know, we've known each other since nursery. Well, you kept that quite quiet for nine months. And so, you know, the film gods were really shining on us because they kept it cool. They probably thought it was going to count against them. Of course, by the time we got to the end of the process. They were just so natural with each other and they wind each other up like no one's business. And let me tell you, they've shaved years off my life, I'm happy to say that on the record. But they're wonderful, wonderful young men, these two and the other three boys. And yeah, if they weren't best mates already, they're best mates now.
[16:20]
Mark Kermode
Very good. I asked you to choose an inspirational film and you chose a film which is a favorite of mine. The director has been on the show many times and it was interesting because it was a film that I had in my head when watching your film, because there is a particular shot which seems to me to be a specific kind of at least a nod towards it. What did you choose?
[16:38]
Imran Perretta
I chose Rat Catcher by Lynn Ramsey.
[16:41]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, so the sequence that we're going to play is the sequence when he's in. He's in the house, which is not yet finished. And it's. People may know this, but it's worth seeing on the big screen again because it is so magical.
[16:56]
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[17:44]
Mark Kermode
take a look.
[18:23]
Imran Perretta
It's incredible.
[18:25]
Mark Kermode
Did you have that in mind when you were making Ish? Were you thinking about that at all?
[18:28]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I mean, you kind of have a compendium of coming of age movies in your head when you're kind of getting into one. And I think the thing is about Ratcatcher for me is there's so many. It's not so much about the narrative, it's about those incredibly small gestures that Lyn's able to kind of bring out, like the pissing in the toilet and all that sort of stuff. But there's another scene that really always stood out to me, which is when the young man scratches his shoes up that he's been given as a gift. And it's like the thing that I find so compelling about her filmmaking is one. It's like the. There's like such a rigorous sort of formalism to it, despite it feeling so free. It's kind of Terrence Malik does it as well. But the main thing, there's definitely a
[19:09]
Mark Kermode
bit of Badlands in there, right?
[19:10]
Imran Perretta
Yeah. And Days of Heaven, you know, all that sort of stuff, like the big old landscape and all this. But the thing that really does it for me is, is like the attention that she pays to small gestures and how true they feel. You know, that whole sequence just feels.
[19:21]
Jason Isaacs
Feels so true.
[19:22]
Imran Perretta
It's exactly the type of thing a kid would do. And she gives it so much time and space and like respect and love. And I think Ish was about that for me, was like so much about being in these boys midst and trying to just get out the way and just let them do their thing. So that what we see on screen felt as true as it possibly could. And that is so much from watching Gas man, from watching Rat Catcher, you know, Lin is very much like, you know, an inspiration.
[19:48]
Mark Kermode
Do you know what you're gonna do next?
[19:50]
Imran Perretta
Oh, man, I don't know. Well, I've got a show coming up in at the Tate. Yeah.
[19:54]
Mark Kermode
And so that's. That's on from when?
[19:57]
Imran Perretta
From the 20th of July. Right.
[19:59]
Mark Kermode
And you're gonna be doing a Q and A here at the BFI with Ish.
[20:02]
Imran Perretta
Yes, quite a few. The main one is on the 29th of July, and the boys are gonna introduce the film.
[20:07]
Mark Kermode
Wow. Fantastic. That's gonna shake you. Very good.
[20:11]
Jason Isaacs
Okay, great.
[20:12]
Imran Perretta
And then the film's out the. On 31st of July.
[20:15]
Mark Kermode
Great. And have you got. Have you got something else in the pipeline other than the show? Have you got another feature in you?
[20:19]
Imran Perretta
Yeah, I reckon.
[20:20]
Mark Kermode
So is it Star wars
[20:24]
Imran Perretta
maybe? No, of course not.
[20:26]
Mark Kermode
That is what happens, you know, that's how it works. You make an independent film, it's big smash, and they give you Star Wars. That's how it works. And they. They mess you up. But they say it's you, but it's just a thing. They'll give you a Star Wars.
[20:34]
Imran Perretta
Well, do you know what, mate? If they do, I'll give you a call.
[20:37]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. I want you, you know, so when you, when, when you make your next feature, whether it's a Star wars or not, you come back on the show
[20:45]
Imran Perretta
and talk about it anytime.
[20:46]
Mark Kermode
And will you carry on composing because it seems to me that your composition and your filmmaking are absolutely intertwined. And I think it's good because, you know, there is a. There is a strange history of filmmakers who have composed. Goes back to Charlie Chaplin, obviously. You know who was the only Oscar Charlie Chaplin ever won competitively was for composition.
[21:02]
Imran Perretta
No way.
[21:03]
Paige
Yeah.
[21:04]
Mark Kermode
And it's. I know, crazy, right?
[21:06]
Imran Perretta
But.
[21:06]
Mark Kermode
So there. But it's a. It is a small John Carpenter. There is a small body of people who compose and direct. And it seems to me that for you, those two things are absolutely intertwined.
[21:16]
Imran Perretta
I'm just trying to be Mark Jenkins, to be honest.
[21:18]
Mark Kermode
Yeah, well. And of course, Mark does indeed compose for his own films and he's currently in the IMAX showing Rosa Nevada. Well, listen, congratulations on the film and I look forward to its great success in the cinema. I hope that it's absolutely packed when you do the Q and A here with the boys in introducing the film. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
[21:33]
Imran Perretta
Thank you.
[21:34]
Mark Kermode
Thank you. Now, you may or may not have noticed that Wimbledon's been on. And whilst Wimbledon's been on, people have been looking for interesting things to focus in on, including this. We'll sort it in post. Including this. Okay. George Clooney, obviously. So I was thinking, that's Jason Isaac spending an awful lot of time in Wimbledon. We've got a show at the bfi. That means he's in London. So I literally texted him and went, are you in London? Because he's never in London. He's always running around the world filming one of the eight projects that he's done since the last time we spent spoke. Anyway, he said, yes, I am here. Ladies and gentlemen, hello to Jason Isaacs.
[22:44]
Advertisement Voice
Hello.
[22:45]
Jason Isaacs
You didn't ask me for a scene that I like. So I came in tribute Bob Peck shorts from Jurassic Park. Very good.
[22:51]
Mark Kermode
Well done.
[22:52]
Jason Isaacs
Well done. I came straight from work. I would have dressed up for you. Thank you.
[22:55]
Mark Kermode
What's the Wimbledon thing? Are you huge?
[22:56]
Jason Isaacs
I'm a mad tennis fan.
[22:58]
Advertisement Voice
I love.
[22:58]
Jason Isaacs
I love Tonis. Always been a tennis fan and I love the drama and psychology of it. I mean, most people who love sport love the characters. And what I love about. I play a lot of tennis and it's one of the few times I suddenly turned this into a therapy session. Now, one of the few times I'm completely present and the other time is when I'm not myself and someone says, action. When I'm completely in the world and not in the past or in the future, my mind is playing a million Tricks on me. There's something about playing tennis and watching tennis that, yes, they can all hit the ball, they can move their arms around. But what I'm intrigued by, because I do it so much, I go to so many tournaments and I even know some of the players stuff, is what their inner dialogue is. What are they saying to themselves when they're losing? Or what are they saying to us when they have a bad relationship with their coach? What are they saying to themselves when they know that they're going to win? How do people. And when you act, that is what you do. And there's a misconception in the public that you do and say the things that are on the page, but what you're really doing, what you're paid for, I guess the job is, is to fill up the world of the inside that isn't on the page, that makes the outside make sense. And that's what I'm intrigued by. When I watched the tennis plays, I was at the men's and ladies singles finals and on the Wimbledon radio. Not that this isn't magnificent, but the great ambition left for me professionally is to commentate on tennis. It was close. I was chatting about it. I actually, a couple of years ago, I was at the US Open with the head of the Tennis channel. He said, do you want a show? You love tennis. Do you want a show? And I said, yeah, I could do one. Maybe I could inter. I could play tennis, like desert island disc. Play tennis with celebrities. And then that's just a bit of montage where we sit down in between. I could say, when did you first play tennis? How'd you get into it and learn about their life that way? And he went, I love that show. Let's do it. And I went, solid. I don't actually want that. I want to commentate. And he went, don't be a fucking idiot who wants to listen to you talk about tennis? And I said, well, I could bring the layperson and, you know, attitude at the booth. He went, no, I've got the world's greatest tennis players doing that.
[24:46]
Mark Kermode
Yeah. Is it possible to explain what it is about tennis that brings that thing? Because, I mean, when we were at school together. So I've said this for a week,
[24:55]
Jason Isaacs
although I'm so much younger than you. It's weird, isn't it?
[24:57]
Mark Kermode
I know, I know, George, you always
[25:07]
Jason Isaacs
make yourself older with the same age, and you're always on that bloody show. Not that I love your show, I love your podcast saying that you're a year older. Than you are. What is that strange tick you have out of your arms?
[25:17]
Mark Kermode
I'll tell you why it is. There is an actual answer to that, which is, firstly, I can't remember how old I am. And secondly, no. And secondly, the good lady professor, her indoors is older than I am.
[25:28]
Jason Isaacs
You're trying to make her feel better.
[25:29]
Mark Kermode
No, it's because I imagine that we have been together for so long, as have you and your partner. I kind of think we're the same age. So when people say, how old? Here's what happens. I go on the radio, I say, I'm 63. Which, incidentally, I am now 63. I go, I'm 63. And my phone goes ping. And it's you and Dave Norris going, you're not 63.
[25:49]
Jason Isaacs
Don't rush it. It's all coming anyway, for God's sake.
[25:51]
Mark Kermode
But is it possible to say what it is about tennis? That is.
[25:55]
Jason Isaacs
It's a warrior sport. It's an individual sport. But they do this strange thing where they warm up with each other and they care about each other. They travel with each other. So they're both friendly and close and also rivals. And it's a weird thing. Acting is, you know, it is a group exercise. You're only ever as good as the other people in the scene, and you can only ever be lifted by the great script. It's a totally ensemble thing. And yet it's also, in a strange way, competitive. You know, you all lift each other by doing your best. You want everyone else to be great, but you also, you know, are aware. I remember sitting next to Ken Branagh in the makeup chair on Harry Potter, and he said, how's it going, darling? I said, I think. I think I'm being very big. And he went, look up. You'll see the soles of my shoes. You know, we all knew we had five minutes per film, so you always wanted, you know, milking the 12th udder of it all, you know, So. I don't know. There's something about that. They're out there alone. They're young. I know some of these places. They're really young, and they're making these tough decisions. And also, it's cruel. The inner life fascinates me, as I know it does you, when. Whenever I'm meeting someone, talking to someone, I always want to know really what makes them tick. That's why I'm an actor, or that's why I'm involved in the storytelling business, what is going on inside people's heads.
[27:04]
Mark Kermode
But there's also this weird thing, like.
[27:06]
Jason Isaacs
I digress for a second. I didn't know. Mostly I knew Sean's work. Who I'm a massive fan of hers and I can't wait to see that. Reminded me of the comeback of it as well.
[27:13]
Mark Kermode
Oh, right.
[27:13]
Paige
Yeah.
[27:14]
Jason Isaacs
But the other two I didn't know. And I cannot wait to see your films. They just look incredible. And I'm telling you right now, I'm available. Whatever it is that you do, I would like to work with you. We know we're going to talk about AI in a minute. And I realize now why you were reacted so poorly, as if some. I'm not an AI advocate at all. I just know a bit about it that is a staggeringly beautiful. Reminded me a bit of the stuff I learned during the salt path about how nature and walking in nature can be of such enormous benefit. It turns out the Japanese let you go. Not let you go, sorry, feel sick. In Japan, they can prescribe forest bathing for you. They can send you out rangers who make you hug trees and roll. And then just very recently was a report about trees releasing some kind of spores that they actually can measure now. So not only your biological markers improve when you're near trees, but they understand, they think they understand why. And it's not spiritual, it's purely physical. So that was a.
[28:05]
Mark Kermode
There is an.
[28:06]
Jason Isaacs
I can't wait to see that film. How the fuck can I swear on your podcast?
[28:09]
Mark Kermode
Go ahead. You were the first person to ever swear in an English class.
[28:14]
Jason Isaacs
Sorry?
[28:14]
Mark Kermode
Literally, you were the first person that ever swear in an English. No, I thought you were Superman. You literally swore in an English class and didn't get sent to detention. How did he do it anyway? So carry on.
[28:26]
Jason Isaacs
Like I just do now.
[28:27]
Mark Kermode
Exactly.
[28:27]
Jason Isaacs
Those geese, are they geese? Snow geese or something? Was someone with a character free falling or something? How the hell were they?
[28:33]
Mark Kermode
He's in a glider and he's leading them, you know, like flyaway home. He's showing them the way home because they're following the glider. It's a real thing. It's a real, real thing actually, actually, genuinely happens. I've completely lost my thread now. Yes, I was gonna say you weren't. You weren't particularly into sport when we were. When we were.
[28:50]
Advertisement Voice
Did you.
[28:51]
Jason Isaacs
No, no. Look, I travel as an actor. It's a weird thing. You know, I was thinking recently, my wife has a huge group of friends locally where we live, all the women and I have people that I love. And often when you work with people and making films, you get Very close to people. I actually don't see the very few people who I would still call my close friends very much because I'm away a lot and the last year I've been making things back to back to back, and I. And I haven't seen the people I like, apart from on FaceTime, an awful lot. So what was the question?
[29:18]
Mark Kermode
Tell us what the things you've been doing because you.
[29:20]
Jason Isaacs
Oh, no, no. You don't know about that.
[29:21]
Mark Kermode
No, no.
[29:21]
Jason Isaacs
These are films that aren't coming out.
[29:23]
Mark Kermode
All right, just. Just give us a few, sort of just.
[29:25]
Jason Isaacs
Oh, no, I know there is. So I pack a tennis racket when I go places and it's one of the things.
[29:29]
Mark Kermode
Interviewing you is like wrestling in Anaconda. It's like,
[29:35]
Jason Isaacs
I made a bunch. So what happened with it? You know, I did White Lotus for a long time. Seven months. And then we did publicity.
[29:40]
Mark Kermode
Congratulations on the nominations. Well done. Should have won. You were robbed.
[29:43]
Jason Isaacs
Whatever. You know what's nice is that we were nominated for everything, all of us, all the time. And thank Christ nobody won because it would have been very awkward if anybody won anything. We nominated about 800 awards and we all went home empty handed.
[29:53]
Imran Perretta
Excellent.
[29:54]
Jason Isaacs
We're known as the white losers now anyway, by the way, let's. I'm not under any illusion when people go say it's very flattering or something, you know, what we did, or people are nice to me. It's not a coincidence that every year everybody in the White Lotus gets nominated. It's because Mike White creates three dimensional human characters that people want to see and relate to. And he's not developed in the sense that people don't. They're not interfering with what he writes and why he writes. He doesn't write to make a political point. He doesn't. These characters aren't ciphers or symbols. He writes and they almost reveal themselves to him. And now, of course, they leave him completely alone. And that's why everyone's nominated every year, because the writing is so pretty brilliant. His directing is so brilliant.
[30:34]
Mark Kermode
So what to tell us about some of the projects you've been.
[30:37]
Jason Isaacs
I didn't work for ages. My point, I just spent the entire time in hotel rooms or go to tennis clubs and then talking about this thing again and again and again and again. So I then thought, and we're empty nesters, both of us are kids around the house. And I thought, sod it, I'm just going to work now. And I've done back to back to back. So I went, I Did Victorian Psycho. Did you see that? No, it came out. So it came out. It was in Cannes and it's coming out in America a couple months. It came out here.
[30:58]
Mark Kermode
I'll see when it to comes coming out here.
[31:00]
Jason Isaacs
And then I did the Julia set, which reunited me with Gillian Anderson, which was fun.
[31:05]
Mark Kermode
And you made the Salt Path, which is only now coming out in America.
[31:07]
Jason Isaacs
Coming out in America. It's going to be interesting doing publicity for the Salt Path, now that there's been. I said, are you sure you want us to do publicity? They went, absolutely. And I went, okay, yeah, fine. I think it's a beautiful film. I think that, you know, much of it is still completely valid. Obviously, some of the things have been questioned. It's going to be an interesting experience. And then I did Guy Ritchie's film, which was really. It's called Viva La Madness, A Jason Statham film, which I know you're a huge state fan.
[31:34]
Mark Kermode
I am.
[31:35]
Jason Isaacs
Actually got to squeeze his breast there. Made a mahogany. It's a remarkable thing. His nipples are chest pawns. But in the film, I actually do. And then, just as a dig at me, Guy said, we got. And I'm going, jesus, you're not a vegan, are you? Because I'm a vegan. But anyway, I did that, and it was interesting. I don't know what you know or think or have heard about working with Guy.
[31:57]
Mark Kermode
Well, I know nothing about what. Working with him at all.
[32:00]
Jason Isaacs
So I'd heard these rumors. Oh, he doesn't come out the trailer. And as if somehow he's disinterested because he has many, many projects going on at the same time. He's making the Gentleman, he's making Young Show. It's true. He has a trailer with giant screens. And he's incredibly interested in micro detail, but also incredibly empowering. He goes, you got a big idea, Go for it. I did. It's not an enormous part. And I want. I said, look, if I'm going to be in one of your films, you. Your films have a history of some big characters that you remember. We all remember Brad Pitt and Snatch and stuff. And I went, I want to make some really big, bold choices like Sean was talking about. And I don't come off or not. And the first day I didn't, he went, jesus Christ, I don't know, man, that is very big. I went, I know. And he went, if. Let's go with it, and if I decide in the end I don't like it, will you come in and try and change a Lot of it. And I went, sure, hope you don't. And he was very. On the third day, he went, no, let's just go with it. And I. So wait, I want to say what I've done in it, but it is. It's not normal.
[32:53]
Mark Kermode
Have you seen. Have you seen.
[32:54]
Jason Isaacs
Anyway, what does he say?
[32:55]
Mark Kermode
Have you seen the finished thing?
[32:56]
Jason Isaacs
No, No, I haven't. But I was there on the set, and I really liked what he was. Really interesting, guys. A very opinionated person, happy to talk about anything, be challenged. Actually so interested in having interesting conversations that he let someone else set the shot up and then comes in and is fully involved in every frame of it. So it's nonsense. He sits in the trailer. And I found it much more creative and fulfilling than I thought. I thought, oh, it's a gangster film. It'll be the thing I imagine I'd slot into the template. But no, he gives people a lot of freedom to try things out. And then I did Tomb Raider with your old fleabag mate. With Phoebe, who runs Tomb Raider and really runs it, you can really feel it's her show. I went from one of the most male environments you can imagine, a Guy Ritchie film, and Jason and the rest of them, to Phoebe's set, which is extremely. Phoebe's set and Tomb Raider. And she's reinvented that with Sophie completely. And then I did a tiny, beautiful indie film in Dublin, which is the indie. These are big films, guys. Film. And Tomb Raider did a tiny film with a crew of, you know, half a dozen people called Silverback, in which I had to be from Dublin, doing a cabra accent. And if anyone is from Dublin, I'm so sorry. I did my very best. Everybody else was from Dublin, so I did it all the time. All day, every day.
[34:08]
Mark Kermode
You've got a great ear fracture.
[34:09]
Jason Isaacs
It's okay.
[34:10]
Mark Kermode
No, I'm sorry. You've always had a. And one of the things that you got into trouble for was when you were doing White Lotus, the accent that you were doing was absolutely bang on. And then people were going, oh, that accent's not right. You go, yes, it was.
[34:21]
Jason Isaacs
All the people from the town I was doing got in touch with, say, people from other states. So there's not some. No. So similarly, this is not just meant to be Dublin. It's meant to be for one place in cabra. And there was a guy, a driver, and I did him. But. But I found myself doing it all day, every day, and doing it in the shops as well, and doing it when I play tennis my day off. And so if anybody ever listens to this podcast, think what the fuck was that English actor doing when I met him in the street? I'm sorry, I know it's a bit pretentious, but it's how it works, you know. And then I did oh Gundam. I did a couple of these things with these very sexy young Netflix Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo. You know who that is? Most people too old here to know my kids knew was who it which is big robots bashing each other thing and
[35:09]
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[36:06]
Jason Isaacs
Lily, what else did I do? I did something else. My lovely publicity.
[36:09]
Paige
I don't know if there's anything else.
[36:10]
Jason Isaacs
I can't remember.
[36:10]
Mark Kermode
Anyway, anything else that you're allowed to talk about.
[36:12]
Jason Isaacs
The point is.
[36:13]
Mark Kermode
The point is you're working all the time.
[36:15]
Jason Isaacs
I really loved it, but I'm away from home an awful lot.
[36:17]
Mark Kermode
Which is weird because you don't like being away from home, but you're a workaholic.
[36:22]
Jason Isaacs
I really love working with first time directors. Really like young people. It's as you can tell, you know, I maintain a tremendous childishness in my work and childlike behavior.
[36:33]
Mark Kermode
Oh, childish was right.
[36:34]
Jason Isaacs
And when I was in. So I was in Australia making this film with much younger actors taking it very seriously. They're at a different point in their career. They're trying to build stuff and they were a bit thrown by how much I felt. It seemed like I was not taking it seriously. And then bit by bit we talked about it quite, you know, a lot and I watched them do some of the things that I've picked up from much better actors, which is behave a bit like an idiot and a child on set so you can stay loose so that anything can happen. Feels like anything can happen. There's a script. But nonetheless, if you're lucky enough to have talented directors, as Jim, who was directing Gundam, was, if you feel like if you're loose enough not to feel constricted by what's on the page, you might suddenly go off somewhere else because, you know you're allowed to and you feel in the part. So, yeah, I've had a really lovely time for the last year and work back to back. It will stop soon because you don't have a run of luck like this.
[37:21]
Mark Kermode
I don't know. One of the things that's happened is that there is a book coming out about Event Horizon and there's been an awful lot of interest in Event Horizon. Of course, in Event Horizon you worked with Sam Neill, who we lost yesterday. Yeah, exactly.
[37:34]
Jason Isaacs
Yeah. Really sad.
[37:35]
Mark Kermode
I wanted to just show a clip from Event Horizon because people talk about Event Horizon all the time and it's one of those things. And you said the same was true of Peter Pan. You make a film that at the time that it comes out, people are very sniffy about, and then 20 years later, everyone.
[37:49]
Jason Isaacs
Very sniffy is a nice way of saying it was a catastrophic flop. No, I'll tell you about Horizon before you show it. Larry Gordon produced it, one of the great legendary producers, and he said, here's what we're going to do when it comes out. We're going to get in a limo, we're going to go around. We had a big premiere party on the opening night. We're going to drive around to all the cinemas and we're going to go stand in the back, watch people scream, watch people laugh. Then we'll go for a meal. So we all get in a stretch limo. It's me and Jolie and Laurence Fishburne and Sam and everyone, Sean Pertwin. We get in the car and we go to the first cinema of the Sen. And Larry gets out, speaks. The box office comes back, he goes, let's just go for dinner. So we go there.
[38:22]
Advertisement Voice
What?
[38:22]
Jason Isaacs
He goes, yeah. No, let's just. No, it's fine. Let's just go for dinner. We knew it wasn't going to be a great night, but it has become a massive success over the years. Many, many fans of it, including Tarantino. I just. The other thing I saw that I did a improvised Film with Jamie Adams who does he's one films in Wales with Tarantino and Kylie and Alison Williams and Hugh Lovely Hughes in the audience. And he was going on about Paul Anderson. What a big fan he is of Paul Anderson.
[38:49]
Mark Kermode
I'm just quickly show a clip from Ben Horizon.
[38:52]
Jason Isaacs
So if the ship didn't blow up, then what happened?
[38:54]
Audience Member or Assistant
Well, the mission was going perfectly, like a textbook. They reached safe distance using conventional thrusters. All systems look good. They had the good go ahead to use the gravity drive to open the gateway to Proxima Centauri and then they just disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Until now.
[39:15]
Mark Kermode
Where has she been for the last seven years, Doctor?
[39:18]
Audience Member or Assistant
That's what we're here to find out. Now we've been unable to verify live contact. The TDRs did receive this single transmission. The hell is that? Listen to this. Houston passed same recording through several filters. Managed to isolate what appears to be a human voice. Not even sure if it qualifies as language.
[40:01]
Mark Kermode
Latin.
[40:02]
Jason Isaacs
What I think sounds like Latin.
[40:06]
Mark Kermode
Can you translate it?
[40:07]
Jason Isaacs
Say it again. Okay. You hear that? Sounds like Liberate may.
[40:22]
Audience Member or Assistant
Something.
[40:23]
Jason Isaacs
I don't know, I can't make out the rest.
[40:24]
Mark Kermode
Liberate May.
[40:27]
Jason Isaacs
Save me. Jesus,
[40:32]
Advertisement Voice
it's great.
[40:33]
Jason Isaacs
My grandson.
[40:34]
Mark Kermode
It's great.
[40:34]
Jason Isaacs
My grandson on the screen up there. It is really good. It was great. God, all those people. So Sam was. What's odd? Not odd, fabulous about Sam. He plays these very establishment figures. He was the most fun, most trouble seeking, fabulous, disruptive fella. He always wanted to know where the party was. Always that he was always the last person to leave. And it's odd that he plays those characters. I remember there's a scene in which we're all in shorts. We'll be incubated in a pod or something. We get out. I love the fact I said, Paul, I can smoke. In the future they find out where you can smoke and it doesn't hurt. Yeah, I can do that then.
[41:05]
Paige
So.
[41:06]
Jason Isaacs
So I spoke and. And we all get out the pods. But you know, I was about 12, as was Sean and the others were slightly older. So they all pulled the things up stomach in. And one said, where's the frame? Where's the frame? And we all like walking around because at the time we all had these flat tummies like that. I wouldn't be doing it now. We had a good time. It was like a play because it was the same actors every day. And we never went to that huge set. Beautiful set.
[41:31]
Mark Kermode
It's a real set.
[41:31]
Jason Isaacs
Stunning design. There were two sets. There was the event horizon. There was a Lewis and Clark, the safe place. And the event horizon was a dark and strange and mysterious. It was a kind of Gothic cathedral. And I think they put organic material on the walls which actually rotted and smelt. So it was a place you didn't really want to go. The eventual. It felt like a creepy place to go to. Yeah. No. Sam was a team leader and always wanted to know where the party was. Yeah, it's a great loss. He was a wonderful actor. It might have been the first time I saw someone do this thing that you see a lot on screen. When we did that scene, I couldn't hear him. He was whispering and I thought, wasn't someone going to say something to it? Like, he's. That's never going to work. And not only does it work, he's completely enigmatic and charismatic in this thing.
[42:09]
Mark Kermode
Now, I had nominally got you on here to talk about what's happening with AI in Hollywood.
[42:14]
Jason Isaacs
I only came so I could look for work with those two creators. Exactly.
[42:17]
Mark Kermode
So what I realize is that you're gonna have to come back and do the great Jason AI thing.
[42:21]
Jason Isaacs
Okay, well, let me just say this. Give us a short. I'm not an advocate for AI no, no, no. It's a disgraceful thing. And ecologically, it's gonna destroy the planet. There are many worrying things about it. It is a fact that many people in Hollywood who have been very loud, vocal noises against it are behind the scenes and working to train. There's so much unemployment there. People are now training the models. And it's also true as a mode of entry. And I don't say you can park the ecological damage it's doing, but you used to have to have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 pounds to make a short. Now you can shoot your friends on your iPhone and with a little bit of AI help, it looks like a 50 grand short or $100 million short. So it's. The gatekeepers have gone as a price of entry. I hope that it doesn't take over. I was on a big set in Australia and I was talking with the other people around who were some. You know, it's Netflix, a big film. There'll be kind of executives around, the directors going, it may well be that we're seeing the last time that people have build giant sets and have loads of crew. I think that would be a tragic and terrible thing. But it is nonetheless a reality that film schools are changing their syllabus to acknowledge the fact this technology exists. And we're going to have to work with it and use it and try and find responsible ways of using it because it's dumb to pretend that it isn't. And the stuff that it's making, stuff that allows you to make, if you're a visionary and still know what pictures you want to tell is completely undetectable, there's no difference between that and real things. It's sad but true. And so to bury your head in the sand reminds me when I first started acting and those people who were edited on celluloid said, I don't buy this non linear stuff, this avid stuff. It's nonsense. You've got to feel the film. Well, if they didn't learn how to use a mouse and proper things, they were no longer editors. So it's just a reality that it's happening. And young filmmakers, young would be filmmakers, even young actors need to learn those tools.
[43:59]
Mark Kermode
Okay, I would genuinely like you to come back on and talk about this at greater length because I know you have a lot to say about it. And it is, I'll say this, one
[44:06]
Jason Isaacs
of the big agencies in Hollywood, and there's only a couple, are already sending their clients to record their digital images in anticipation of renting or licensing those things out. So for all the noises they're making in public, in private, everyone is acknowledging that something is coming. Massive change is coming. Okay. But what's great is people will be able to make smaller films and maybe even reach the public directly without the old gatekeepers.
[44:28]
Mark Kermode
I tell you what we're going to do. Do you want to just come back every month? Because we can just have a regular.
[44:34]
Jason Isaacs
Let's all just go.
[44:35]
Mark Kermode
Should we do that? Should we just have Jason on every month? Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Isaac.
[44:42]
Advertisement Voice
Thank you very much.
[44:50]
Mark Kermode
That's it for this week's edition of Kermit on Film. Thanks to my guests Imran Perretta and Jason Isaacs. If you missed it, you can hear the other half of this month MK3D on last week's Kermit on Film, when I talked to Ed sayers about his Super 8 feature Super Nature, and to the brilliant Sian Clifford about her starring role in the Mock doc Lady. We take a break over August, but from September, MK3D is live at the BFI South bank every month. If you'd like to join us, tickets are available at the BFI website. For more conversations from me and Simon Mayo, head over to Kermode Mayo's take wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Keep watching the skies.
[45:29]
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[46:01]
Mark Kermode
Hello, this is Simon Mayo and this is Mark kermode. He's the UK's best and most trusted film critic. He's a best selling writer, broadcast podcaster and national treasure.
[46:10]
Audience Member or Assistant
Far too kind.
[46:11]
Mark Kermode
Kermit and Mayo's take has all the reviews you need and star guests such as Sir Ian McKellen.
[46:17]
Jason Isaacs
Nice to be with you.
[46:18]
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Kermode on Film — Jason Isaacs says hello and Imran Perretta talks about ISH

Host: Mark Kermode Guests: Imran Perretta (filmmaker/artist), Jason Isaacs (actor) Date: August 4, 2026 Recorded live at: BFI Southbank, London

Episode Overview

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Imran Perretta and the Making of ISH

Imran on His Creative Identity

From Art Piece to Feature Film

Themes Explored in ISH

Melding Sound and Story

On Luton as Setting

Casting Process & Chemistry

Influences: Ratcatcher and Small Gestures

2. Future Projects & Multidisciplinary Practice

3. Jason Isaacs: On Tennis, Acting, and Work

Life as a Tennis Fan

On Companionship and Rivalry

Recent Projects and Working On Set

4. Reflections on Event Horizon and Sam Neill

5. On AI and the Future of Film

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Important Timestamps

Tone and Style

For Listeners/Readers

Kermode on Film — Jason Isaacs says hello and Imran Perretta talks about ISH

Host: Mark Kermode Guests: Imran Perretta (filmmaker/artist), Jason Isaacs (actor) Date: August 4, 2026 Recorded live at: BFI Southbank, London

Episode Overview

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Imran Perretta and the Making of ISH

Imran on His Creative Identity

From Art Piece to Feature Film

Themes Explored in ISH

Melding Sound and Story

On Luton as Setting

Casting Process & Chemistry

Influences: Ratcatcher and Small Gestures

2. Future Projects & Multidisciplinary Practice

3. Jason Isaacs: On Tennis, Acting, and Work

Life as a Tennis Fan

On Companionship and Rivalry

Recent Projects and Working On Set

4. Reflections on Event Horizon and Sam Neill

5. On AI and the Future of Film

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Important Timestamps

Tone and Style

For Listeners/Readers

Host: Mark Kermode
Guests: Imran Perretta (filmmaker/artist), Jason Isaacs (actor)
Date: August 4, 2026
Recorded live at: BFI Southbank, London

Host: Mark Kermode
Guests: Imran Perretta (filmmaker/artist), Jason Isaacs (actor)
Date: August 4, 2026
Recorded live at: BFI Southbank, London