Jeremy John Irons is an English actor.
After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began
his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions
including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew,
Godspell, Richard II and Embers.
In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and received a Tony
Award for Best Actor.
Irons's first major film role came in the 1981 romantic drama The French Lieutenant's
Woman, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor.
After starring in such films as Moonlighting, Betrayal and The Mission, he gained critical
acclaim for portraying twin gynaecologists in David Cronenberg's psychological thriller
Dead Ringers.
In 1990, Irons played accused murderer Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune, and took
home multiple awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Other notable films have included Kafka, The House of the Spirits, The Lion King, Die Hard
with a Vengeance, Lolita, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Merchant of Venice, Being Julia,
Kingdom of Heaven, Eragon, Appaloosa, and Margin Call.
Irons has also made several notable appearances on TV.
He earned his first Golden Globe Award nomination for his breakout role in the ITV series Brideshead
Revisited.
In 2005, Irons starred opposite Helen Mirren in the historical miniseries Elizabeth I,
for which he received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
From 2011 to 2013 he starred as Pope Alexander VI in the Showtime historical series The Borgias.
He is one of the few actors who won the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award,
an Emmy Award and a Tony Award.
In October 2011, he was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations.
Early life Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, the
son of Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer, a housewife, and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant.
His Dundee-born, paternal great-great-grandfather was one of the first Metropolitan Policemen,
and later a Chartist; one of his mother's ancestors had been from County Cork, Ireland,
where Irons lives as of at least February 2011.
Irons has a brother, Christopher, and a sister, Felicity Anne.
Irons was educated at the independent Sherborne School in Dorset,.
He was the drummer and harmonica player in a four-man school band called the Four Pillars
of Wisdom.
They performed, in a classroom normally used as a physics lab, for the entertainment of
boys compulsorily exiled from their houses for two hours on Sunday afternoons..
He was also known within Abbey House as half of a comic duo performing skits on Halloween
and at end-of-term house suppers.
Acting career Early work
Irons trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later became president
of its fundraising appeal.
He performed a number of plays, and busked on the streets of Bristol, before appearing
on the London stage as John the Baptist and Judas opposite David Essex in Godspell, which
opened at the Roundhouse on 17 November 1971 before transferring to Wyndham's Theatre playing
a total of 1,128 performances.
Television He made several appearances on British television,
including the children's television series Play Away and as Franz Liszt in the BBC 1974
series Notorious Woman.
More significantly he starred in the 13-part adaptation of H.E.
Bates' novel Love for Lydia for London Weekend Television, and attracted attention for his
key role as the pipe-smoking German student, a romantic pairing with Judi Dench in Harold
Pinter's screenplay adaptation of Aidan Higgins' novel Langrishe, Go Down for BBC television.
The role which brought him fame was that of Charles Ryder in the television adaptation
of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.
Brideshead reunited him with Anthony Andrews, with whom he had appeared in The Pallisers
seven years earlier.
In the same year he starred in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman opposite Meryl Streep.
Almost as a 'lap of honour' after these major successes, in 1982 he played the leading role
of an exiled Polish building contractor, working in the Twickenham area of South West London,
in Jerzy Skolimowski's independent film Moonlighting, widely seen on television, a performance which
extended his acting range.
In 2005, Irons won both an Emmy award and a Golden Globe award for his supporting role
in the TV mini-series, Elizabeth I. A year later Irons was one of the participants in
the third series of the BBC documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?.
In 2008 he played Lord Vetinari in Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, an adaptation for Sky
One.
On 6 November 2008, TV Guide reported he would star as photographer Alfred Stieglitz with
Joan Allen as painter Georgia O'Keeffe, in a Lifetime Television biopic, Georgia O'Keeffe.
Irons also appeared in the documentary for Irish television channel TG4, Faoi Lan Cheoil
in which he learned to play the fiddle.
On 12 January 2011, Irons was a guest-star in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims
Unit called "Mask".
He played Dr. Cap Jackson, a sex therapist.
He reprised the role on an episode titled "Totem" that ran on 30 March 2011.
Irons stars in the 2011 U.S. premium cable network Showtime's series The Borgias, a highly
fictionalised account of the Renaissance dynasty of that name.
Irons portrays patriarch Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI.
Film
Irons made his film debut in Nijinsky in 1980.
He appeared sporadically in films during the 1980s, including the Cannes Palme d'Or winner
The Mission in 1986, and in the dual role of twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's
Dead Ringers in 1988.
Other films include Danny the Champion of the World, Reversal of Fortune, for which
he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, Kafka, Damage, M. Butterfly, The House of the Spirits
appearing again with Glenn Close and Meryl Streep, the voice of Scar in The Lion King,
Die Hard with a Vengeance co-starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, Bernardo Bertolucci's
Stealing Beauty, the 1997 remake of Lolita, and as the musketeer Aramis opposite Leonardo
DiCaprio in the 1998 film version of The Man in the Iron Mask.
Other roles include the evil wizard Profion in the film Dungeons and Dragons and Rupert
Gould in Longitude.
He played the Über-Morlock in the film The Time Machine.
In 2004, Irons played Severus Snape in Comic Relief's Harry Potter parody, "Harry Potter
and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan".
In 2005, he appeared in the films Casanova opposite Heath Ledger, and Ridley Scott's
Kingdom of Heaven.
He has co-starred with John Malkovich in two films; The Man in the Iron Mask and Eragon,
though they did not have any scenes together in the latter.
In 2008, Irons co-starred with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen in Appaloosa, directed by
Harris.
In 2011, Irons appeared alongside Kevin Spacey in the thriller Margin Call.
In 2013, it was announced that Irons would appear in A Magnificent Death From a Shattered
Hand.
In 2014, Warner Bros. announced that Irons will play Alfred Pennyworth in Batman V Superman:
Dawn of Justice.
Theatre Irons has worked with the Royal Shakespeare
Company three times in 1976, 1986–87 and 2010.
In 1984, Irons made his New York debut and won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance
opposite Glenn Close in The Real Thing.
After an absence from the London stage for 18 years, in 2006 he co-starred with Patrick
Malahide in Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of Sándor Márai's novel Embers at the Duke
of York's Theatre.
He made his National Theatre debut playing Harold Macmillan in Never So Good, a new play
by Howard Brenton which opened at the Lyttelton on 19 March 2008.
In 2009, Irons appeared on Broadway opposite Joan Allen in the play Impressionism.
The play ran through 10 May 2009 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.
Other ventures Audio
Irons read the audio book recording of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Paulo Coelho's
The Alchemist, the audio book recording of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and the audio book
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.
One of his best known film roles has turned out to be lending his distinctive voice to
Scar in The Lion King serving as the main antagonist of the film.
Irons has since provided voiceovers for three Disney World attractions.
He narrated the Spaceship Earth ride, housed in the large geodesic globe at Epcot, from
October 1994 to July 2007.
He was also the English narrator for the Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic at the Walt Disney
Studios Park at Disneyland Paris.
He also voiced H.G. Wells in the English version of the former Disney attraction The Timekeeper.
He also reprised his role as Scar in Fantasmic.
He is also one of the readers in the 4x CD boxed set of The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde,
produced by Marc Sinden and sold in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund.
He was originally to star as the Phantom in a 2006 French musical adaptation of Gaston
Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, though the project was cancelled.
He will be the narrator for Val Kilmer and Bill Pullman's Lewis and Clark film from Revolution
Studios.
He serves as the English language version of the audio guide for Westminster Abbey in
London.
Irons has served as voice-over in two big cat documentary films by National Geographic:
Eye of the Leopard, which was released in 2006, and The Last Lions, which was released
on 18 February 2011.
He also currently narrates the French-produced documentary series about volcanoes, Life on
Fire.
The series premiered in the United States on 2 January 2013 on PBS, though the six episodes
were previously released in France from 2009 to 2012 with a different, French-speaking
narrator.
Music In 1985, Irons directed a music video for
Carly Simon and her heavily promoted single, "Tired of Being Blonde".
In 1994, he had a cameo role in the video for Elastica's hit single "Connection".
Irons has contributed to other musical performances, recording William Walton's Façade with Dame
Peggy Ashcroft, Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale conducted by the composer, and in 1987
the songs from Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, released on
the Decca label.
Irons sang segments of "Be Prepared" in the film The Lion King.
After his voice gave out during toward the end of that musical number, Jim Cummings took
over as Scar's singing voice.
He sang a selection of Noël Coward at the 1999 Last Night of the Proms in celebration
of the 100th anniversary of Coward's birth.
In 2003 he played Fredrik Egerman in a New York revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little
Night Music, and two years later appeared as King Arthur in Lerner and Loewe's Camelot
at the Hollywood Bowl.
He performed the Bob Dylan song "Make You Feel My Love" on the 2006 charity album Unexpected
Dreams – Songs From the Stars.
In 2009, Irons appeared on the Touchstone album Wintercoast, recording a narrative introduction
to the album.
Recording took place in New York City, New York in February 2009 during rehearsals for
his Broadway play Impressionism.
Personal life
Irons married Julie Hallam in 1969 and subsequently divorced.
He married Irish actress Sinéad Cusack on 28 March 1978.
They have two sons, Sam, who works as a photographer, and Max Irons, also an actor.
Both of Irons's sons have appeared in films with their father – Sam as the eponymous
hero in Danny, Champion of the World and Max in Being Julia.
Irons' wife and children are Catholic; of himself, he has stated, "I don’t go to church
much because I don’t like belonging to a club, and I don’t go to confession or anything
like that, I don’t believe in it.
But I try to be aware of where I fail and I occasionally go to services.
I would hate to be a person who didn’t have a spiritual side because there’s nothing
to nourish you in life apart from retail therapy."
Irons owns Kilcoe Castle in County Cork, Ireland, and has become involved in local politics
there.
He also has another Irish residence in the Liberties, Dublin.
Irons is a patron of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company.
Irons was bestowed an Honorary-Life Membership by the University College Dublin Law Society
in September 2008, in honour of his contribution to television, film, audio, music and theatre.
Also in 2008, Irons was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Southampton Solent University.
Activism Charity work
At the 1991 Tony Awards, Irons was one of the few celebrities to wear the recently created
red ribbon to support the fight against AIDS, and he was the first celebrity to wear it
onscreen.
He supports a number of other charities, including the Prison Phoenix Trust and Evidence for
Development, for both of which he is an active patron.
In 2010, Irons starred in a promotional video for The 1billionhungry project – a worldwide
drive to attract at least one million signatures to a petition calling on international leaders
to move hunger to the top of the political agenda.
He also provided the narration of the documentary "Sahaya Going Beyond"", about the work of
the charity Sahaya International.
Politics In 1998, Irons and his wife were named in
the list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party, a year after their
return to government after 18 years in opposition.
In 2004, he publicly declared his support for the Countryside Alliance, referring to
the hunting ban as an "outrageous assault on civil liberties" and "one of the two most
devastating parliamentary votes in the last century".
In April 2013, Irons was asked by Huffpost Live host Josh Zepps his opinion on the fight
for same-sex marriage in the United States.
Irons responded, "Could a father not marry his son?"
Zepps responded with an argument that laws against incest prevent such a union.
Irons argued that "it's not incest between men.
Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don't breed," and wondered whether
same-sex marriage might allow fathers to bequeath their estates to their sons to avoid taxation.
On the issue of advocates calling for same-sex marriage as opposed to civil unions, he said,
"It seems to me that now they're fighting for the name," and, "I worry that it means
somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is.
I just worry about that."
He later clarified his comments, saying he was providing an example of a situation that
could cause a "legal quagmire" under the laws that allow same-sex marriage, and that he
had been misinterpreted.
He added that some gay relationships are "healthier" than their straight counterparts.
Alternative medicine He has been criticised in the British Medical
Journal for his fundraising activities in support of The College of Medicine, an alternative
medicine lobby group in the UK linked to Prince Charles.
Work Theatre
Following training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre school Irons initially stayed with
the company: Filmography
Awards and nominations References
External links Jeremy Irons at the Internet Broadway Database
Jeremy Irons at the Internet Movie Database Jeremy Irons - The Authoritative Website
Jeremy Irons at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
Jeremy Irons Profile by The Daily Telegraph