-Our first guest tonight is an Oscar, Emmy,
and Tony-winning actor you know from movies like
"Reversal of Fortune" and "The Lion King"
as well as shows like "Brideshead Revisited"
and "Watchmen."
He stars in "Munich: The Edge of War,"
which is in theaters now
and available on Netflix January 21st.
Let's take a look.
-Every time I...
pass a war memorial or...
visit one of those vast cemeteries in France
where so many of my friends lie buried,
I vow that if I find myself in the position
where I can prevent such a catastrophe
from happening again, I shall do anything...
sacrifice anything.
-Please welcome back to the show Jeremy Irons.
How are you, Jeremy? -I'm good, Seth.
Very nice to see you.
-It's wonderful to see you, too.
I will admit, I was holding out hope
that you would be Zooming with us from your castle in Ireland.
We discussed this last time you were on.
I hope you don't mind. I don't know many people
with castles, so I hope you don't mind.
-I'm sorry, Seth. Yeah, I would have --
I would've gone over there, but -- but, no,
I'm at an unknown location in London,
separated from you by a lot of water, sadly.
I'd like to be there with you
to get the full impact of that smile.
-Thank you. -But, no, I'm here.
-I know it does wane -- my smile does wane a little bit
over Zoom, but it's in full force.
-No, it's good. -For those who don't know,
these are beautiful photos of your castle in Ireland
that were in "Vanity Fair," and I do hope this is
a real dog of yours and not just a prop dog.
-It is a real dog. In fact, she's here.
Somewhere. Yeah, she's outside
looking at the foxes or trying to catch a fox.
-Oh, that's why. That would be what I would want them to do.
Now, this is a very exciting development.
Jeremy, let me be clear. For most people,
I would be very jealous that they have their own castle,
but I'm very happy that you have your own.
-Thank you, Seth. -And now you have also bought
an island near the castle. -How do you know that?
[ Laughter ] -I was on --
I was on Zillow for islands. [ Laughter ]
-All right. Why, yes, I have.
A very small island with a little cottage on it.
It's -- I can just about swim there from the castle.
It's about 100 meters.
-I would say "just about" is the worst possible distance.
-Well, yeah, I -- Yes, I can --
Well, my wife can swim there. -Okay.
As long as there's someone to throw you a line
from "close enough." -Yeah.
-And are you going to put livestock on your island?
-I am. I'm gonna put some Kerry ponies
and some Galloway cattle just to sort of eat it down.
So I'm gonna -- I'm farming a little bit more now
than acting, but...
-As long as you find time for both, we're very satisfied.
-Yeah. By the way, I have --
I've just finished work with your brother, with Mike.
-Oh. Well, Mike is not my brother, but...
-No, he is. He said he was.
-He did say he was? -He was, he did. He did.
When he rang me up and asked me to do his show --
it's called "Pentaverate" -- he said, "I'm Seth's brother."
I said, "Oh, hello, Mike. Yeah, right."
And that was why I did it, because I thought he was your --
But he's not? -No, he's a distant brother.
[ Laughter ] -Is he?
-Twice removed. [ Laughter ]
-Well, that's the only reason I did it.
-Well, it's too late now, sir. -All right. Okay, okay.
You look very alike. -Yeah, we're very similar.
-Yeah. -Very similar.
Now, you -- I want to ask about --
Here's my final question --
I promise, this is my final question about the castle.
But I imagine you have -- there's a lot of upkeep.
You deal with a lot of local tradespeople.
-I do. -Are they aware
that you are an actor?
Are they aware of your work? -They are.
-Okay. -They are.
I remember when we were building it,
we built the castellation on the top.
That's the bit that goes up and down, you know?
And we -- we carefully planned it,
and we'd done models and all of that.
And when I looked at it, when it was finally built,
and I looked at it, I thought it was wrong.
It's too small. So I --
One of my friends said, "Well, I'm not telling the builder.
You go up there." So I climbed up 13 floors
of scaffolding, and I got to the top,
and I said, "This is wonderful, guys.
This is wonderful what you've built,
but actually take it down. We've got to make it bigger,
'cause it's not strong enough, it doesn't look strong enough."
And he looked at me and he said,
"You know, the trouble with working with bloody actors
are the bloody rehearsals."
[ Laughter ]
But he did, he knocked it down, and we built it again.
So they do know -- they do know I'm an actor.
They put up with it, though. -Now, this is a wonderful film.
You play Neville Chamberlain,
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,
during the Munich Conference.
This is obviously a very famous, historical moment,
and yet we see -- I feel like we see so many films
about Winston Churchill
and almost none with Neville Chamberlain.
-Yeah. -This is perhaps a kinder
portrayal of him and how he was strategizing
about dealing with Hitler than we've seen before.
Did that make it more interesting,
that it was a different Neville Chamberlain?
-Yeah, it did. You see, we -- we know about
Neville Chamberlain because of what Churchill's written.
Churchill wrote the history of the war,
and he and Neville were --
They were competitors, politically.
And Churchill always wanted to go to war in '37, '38.
Chamberlain knew we weren't ready,
and so was trying to put it off, put it off,
trying to make peace, trying to, you know...
After all, the First World War had only been 20 years before.
They didn't want to go to war again.
So, as a result, Churchill thought of him as a weak man,
as an appeaser, as somebody who was taken in by Hitler,
whereas, in fact, he was a strategist,
and he gave us another year so we could build up
more of an air force, so we could discover radar
during that year, which really helped us win, with your help --
not yours personally, but, you know...
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
Oh, thank you! Jeremy, thank you.
-People your parents knew. Get-up-and-go Americans
like Seth Meyers and Mike Myers, probably.
-Yeah, exactly. [ Laughter ]
-So, really, had he not appeased,
had he not had the Munich Conference,
we would have gone to war a year earlier.
We probably would have lost immediately
because we had no real defenses at that point.
-Well, it's a fascinating story, and when we come back,
I have some questions about your past
and how you were almost -- -Where are you going?
-What's that? -You said you would
come back from where. Where are you going?
-Well, I miss -- I miss my brother,
and I want to call him. [ Laughter ]
-Okay. Okay.
-We'll be right back with more from Jeremy Irons.
[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]