Jason Isaac's My London

'I'm a smug member of the I-was-in-Harry-Potter-and-you-weren't-society

The Harry Potter nemesis likes Kilburn car boot sales and taking his clothes off

Home is
I've had a home in Queen's Park for 26 years. My wife Emma and I met at drama school in Swiss Cottage in the late 1980s and have lived within a few miles of the Finchley Road ever since.

What's the first thing you do when you arrive back in London?
Get on the Tube or the bus and thank God we have a public transport system that works. In LA all life starts with a car journey in hideous traffic.

Which London shops do you rely on?

The Starbucks at the bottom of my street - the manager Luis is the social hub of the community. I go through running shoes like razor blades so I buy them cheaply from Sports Direct. My kids and I trundle along to the Kilburn car boot sale on Saturday mornings. The Everyman shows grown-up movies - food for the mind.

What advice would you give a tourist coming to London?
Go to the Old Bailey and Prime Minister's Questions, the best shows in town.

What was the last play you saw?
War Horse at the National. I was a wreck before the end of the first scene.

What's the best meal you've had?
My brother-in-law Christopher was head chef at various London restaurants before reinventing himself as a designer. Now he only cooks for us and it's always spectacular.

What's the most romantic thing someone's done for you?
On my birthday years ago, my wife arranged a boat ride down the Thames that took us to a restaurant and then to a hotel in Chelsea Wharf.

How would you like the opening line of your obituary to read?
Jason Isaacs - full-time dad, sometime actor and trophy husband - has gone missing under mysterious circumstances.

Which is your favourite club?
The exclusive British actors' I-was-in-Harry-Potter-and-you-weren't society, of which I am a smug member.

What was the last album you downloaded?
Molotov Jukebox's Double Dare EP. The lead singer, Natalia Tena, played Tonks in the Harry Potter films and would get her accordion out on set. Her band rocked the wrap party.

What are your biggest extravagances?
Computers and chai lattes.

If you could live in any London building which would it be?

Something on Hampstead Heath.

What would you do as Mayor of London for the day?
If I was actually Boris Johnson, I might cut my hair and apologise for being so boorishly Neanderthal.

Which animal would you most like to be?

A rat: I like company, am naturally messy and will eat almost anything.

What are you up to at the moment?
I'm taking the whole family to America while I make a series called Awake for NBC.

Which is your favourite London shopping street?

Portobello Road when the market's on. All life is there.

What do you most like wearing?
Nothing - I must remember to draw the curtains.

Where did you last go on holiday?

I don't like holidays. I like working somewhere long enough to get to know it like a local - that's been London, Scotland, Spain, Morocco, Australia, Eastern Europe, Canada and America. Last year I lived in Edinburgh for five months and my family came up at weekends. They loved the perfectly preserved tenements and catacombs of the underground city.

What are your favourite London discoveries?

Queensway offers sensory overload: we ice-skate with the kids, stuff ourselves with dim sum, then have the dead skin on our feet eaten by fish.

Have you ever had a run-in with the London police?
Er... yes, back in my misspent youth. But they were also brilliant when I had a stalker for nearly a decade.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is out now; Cars 2 is out from today

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