The 48-year-old actor often struggles to sleep at night and admits his condition is similar to that suffered by his character in new TV show Awake, in which he plays a police detective caught between two dream-like realities.

Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is an English actor born in Liverpool, known for his performance as the villain Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the American television series Brotherhood. Though most of his work has been in film and television, it also includes stage performances; most notably as Louis Ironson in Declan Donnellan's 1992 and 1993 Royal National Theatre London premières of Parts One (Millennium Approaches) and Two (Perestroika) of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and as Ben, one of two hitmen, playing opposite Lee Evans as Gus, in Harry Burton's 2007 critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary revival of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's 1957 two-hander The Dumb Waiter at Trafalgar Studios. He currently stars in the NBC drama, Awake as detective Michael Britten.

Isaacs reveals he now fills his time at night by reading reviews of the show.

He tells the Los Angeles Times, ""Much like my character in some ways, I don't get much sleep. I'm up reading probably everything written - both professionally and by amateurs - about the show since it premiered: comments, blogs, feedback... I read it all.""