Jeremy Irons
Encyclopedia
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
, and Richard II
. 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
(1982), Betrayal
(1983), and The Mission (1986), he gained critical acclaim for portraying twin gynaecologists in David Cronenberg
's psychological thriller Dead Ringers
(1988). In 1990, Irons played accused murderer Claus von Bulow
in Reversal of Fortune
, and took home multiple awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor
. Other notable films have included The House of the Spirits
(1993), The Lion King
(1994), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Lolita
(1997), The Merchant of Venice
(2004), Being Julia
(2004), and Appaloosa
(2008).
Irons has also made several notable appearances on television. He earned his first Golden Globe Award
nomination for his breakout role in the ITV
series Brideshead Revisited
(1981). In 2006, 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. Since 2011, he has been starring in the Showtime historical drama The Borgias
.
, Isle of Wight, the son of Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer (née Sharpe; 1914–1999), a housewife, and Paul Dugan Irons (1913–1983), an accountant. Part of his maternal ancestry is Irish, and his great-grandfather was one of the first Metropolitan Policemen
, and later a chartist
. Irons has a brother, Christopher (born 1943), and a sister, Felicity Anne (born 1944). He was educated at the independent Sherborne School
in Dorset, (c. 1962–66). He achieved some fame as the drummer and harmonica player (most memorably for his rendition of "Stairway to Heaven
" on harmonica) 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. Irons has stated that his family is Catholic, but of himself he states, "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."
and is now 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.
Irons was bestowed an Honorary-Life Membership by the Law Society (University College Dublin) in September 2008, in honour of his contribution to television, film, audio, music and theatre.
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
(1977), 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 (1978).
The role which brought him fame was that of Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh
's Brideshead Revisited
(1981). 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
O'Keeffe biopic.
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 that ran on 30 March 2011.
Irons stars in the 2011 U.S. premium cable network Showtime's series The Borgias
, a highly fictionalized account of the Renaissance dynasty of that name. Irons portrays patriarch Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI
.
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
(1989), Reversal of Fortune
(1990), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor
, Kafka
(1991), Damage (1993), M. Butterfly
(1993), The House of the Spirits
(1993) appearing again with Glenn Close
and Meryl Streep
, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) co-starring Bruce Willis
and Samuel L. Jackson
, Bernardo Bertolucci
's Stealing Beauty
(1996), 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
(2000) and Rupert Gould
in Longitude
(2000). He played the Über-Morlock
from the movie The Time Machine
(2002). 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 movies; The Man in the Iron Mask
(1998) and Eragon
(2006), though they did not have any scenes together in Eragon.
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 film Margin Call
.
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.
recording of Evelyn Waugh
's Brideshead Revisited
, Paulo Coelho
's The Alchemist, and the audio book
recording of Vladimir Nabokov
's Lolita
(he had also appeared in the 1997 film version of the novel)).
One of his best known film roles has turned out to be lending his distinctive voice to the villain Scar in The Lion King
(1994). 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 November 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 played 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 canceled. He will be the narrator for Val Kilmer
and Bill Pullman
's brand-new Lewis and Clark movie 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 is a 2011 motion-picture, released on 18 February.
and her heavily promoted single, "Tired of Being Blonde". Although the song was not a hit, the video —featuring the fast cutting, parallel narratives and heavy use of stylized visual effects that were a staple of pop videos at the time— received ample attention on MTV and other outlets.
In 1994 Jeremy Irons had a cameo role in the video for Elastica
's hit single "Connection". Irons was one of the many naked men sitting down around Elastica as they performed the song. Irons has since claimed that this three-minute slice of nudity was his most enjoyable work to date.
Irons has contributed to other musical performances, recording William Walton
's Façade
with Dame Peggy Ashcroft
, and in 1987 the songs from Lerner and Loewe
's My Fair Lady
with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
, released on the Decca
label.
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
.
Jeremy Irons also sang the song "Be Prepared" in the movie The Lion King
. However, he actually sang only a section of the song after having vocal problems; Jim Cummings
finished the last few lines.
Irons 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 in February 2009 during rehearsals for his Broadway play Impressionism
.
in March 1978. They have two sons, Samuel James Brefni Irons (16 September 1978), who works as a photographer, and Maximilian Paul Diarmuid Irons (17 October 1985), also an actor, who appeared in the 2006 Burberry fashion campaign and Red Riding Hood. Both of Irons' 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 lives in the small town of Watlington
, Oxfordshire and the village of Ballydehob, in County Cork
, Republic of Ireland.
He has been the patron since 2002 of the Thomley Activity Centre, an Oxfordshire non-profit activity centre for disabled children. Irons owns Kilcoe Castle (which he had painted a rusty pink) 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
. He is a fan of English football club Portsmouth
.
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
, of which he is an active patron.
. In 2004, he publicly declared his support for the Countryside Alliance
, referring to the hunting ban as an "outrageous assault on civil liberties".
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.
for his fundraising activities in support of The College of Medicine
, an alternative medicine
lobby group
in the UK linked to Prince Charles
.
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...
, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
, Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
, The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
, and Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
's The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
and received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Actor.
Irons's first major film role came in the 1981 romantic drama The French Lieutenant's Woman
The French Lieutenant's Woman (film)
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
, for which he received a BAFTA
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
nomination for Best Actor. After starring in such films as Moonlighting
Moonlighting (film)
Moonlighting is a 1982 British drama film written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is set in the early 1980s at the time of the Solidarity protests in Poland...
(1982), Betrayal
Betrayal (1983 film)
Betrayal is a film adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones. It was critically well received, praised notably by New York Times film critic Vincent Canby and by...
(1983), and The Mission (1986), he gained critical acclaim for portraying twin gynaecologists in David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...
's psychological thriller Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers (film)
Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland...
(1988). In 1990, Irons played accused murderer Claus von Bulow
Claus von Bülow
Claus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born...
in Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune is a 1990 film adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz...
, and took home multiple awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. Other notable films have included The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits (film)
The House of the Spirits is a 1993 German-Danish-Portuguese dramatic film starring Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas. The supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, María Conchita Alonso, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Jan Niklas...
(1993), The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
(1994), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Lolita
Lolita (1997 film)
Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze,...
(1997), The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice (2004 film)
The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 romantic drama film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first full-length sound film version in English of Shakespeare's play; most other versions are videotaped productions made for television...
(2004), Being Julia
Being Julia
Being Julia is a 2004 drama film with comic undertones directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham...
(2004), and Appaloosa
Appaloosa (film)
Appaloosa is a 2008 American Western film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by crime writer Robert B. Parker. The film was directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott. Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons...
(2008).
Irons has also made several notable appearances on television. He earned his first Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
nomination for his breakout role in the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
series Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited (TV serial)
Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. The teleplay is based on Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...
(1981). In 2006, Irons starred opposite Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
in the historical miniseries Elizabeth I, for which he received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Best Supporting Actor. Since 2011, he has been starring in the Showtime historical drama The Borgias
The Borgias (2011 TV series)
The Borgias is a 2011 historical fiction television series created by Neil Jordan.The series is based on the Borgia family, an Italian dynasty of Spanish origin, and stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI with David Oakes, François Arnaud, Holliday Grainger and Aidan Alexander as Juan, Cesare,...
.
Early life
Irons was born in CowesCowes
Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...
, Isle of Wight, the son of Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer (née Sharpe; 1914–1999), a housewife, and Paul Dugan Irons (1913–1983), an accountant. Part of his maternal ancestry is Irish, and his great-grandfather was one of the first Metropolitan Policemen
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
, and later a chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
. Irons has a brother, Christopher (born 1943), and a sister, Felicity Anne (born 1944). He was educated at the independent Sherborne School
Sherborne School
Sherborne School is a British independent school for boys, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....
in Dorset, (c. 1962–66). He achieved some fame as the drummer and harmonica player (most memorably for his rendition of "Stairway to Heaven
Stairway to Heaven
"Stairway to Heaven" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band's untitled fourth studio album . The song, running eight minutes and two seconds, is composed of several sections, which...
" on harmonica) 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. Irons has stated that his family is Catholic, but of himself he states, "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."
Acting career
Irons trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre SchoolBristol Old Vic Theatre School
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...
and is now president of its fundraising appeal. He performed a number of plays, and busked on the streets of Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, before appearing on the London stage as John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
and Judas
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
opposite David Essex
David Essex
David Essex OBE is an English musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Since the 1970s, Essex has attained nineteen Top 40 singles in the UK , and sixteen Top 40 albums...
in Godspell
Godspell
Godspell is a musical by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak. It opened off Broadway on May 17, 1971, and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since, including a 2011 revival now playing on Broadway...
, which opened at the Roundhouse
The Roundhouse
The Roundhouse is a Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England, which has been converted into a performing arts and concert venue. It was originally built in 1847 as a roundhouse , a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was only used for railway...
on 17 November 1971 before transferring to Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham . Located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, it was designed by W.G.R. Sprague about 1898, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916...
playing a total of 1,128 performances.
Irons was bestowed an Honorary-Life Membership by the Law Society (University College Dublin) in September 2008, in honour of his contribution to television, film, audio, music and theatre.
Television
He made several appearances on British television, including the children's television series Play AwayPlay Away
Play Away was a sister programme to Play School in the UK, aimed at slightly older children. It ran from 1971 until 1984. While Play School had a more gentle, intimate feel, featuring just two presenters in a studio with the usual collection of toys and pets, Play Away was much more lively,...
and as Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
in the BBC 1974 series Notorious Woman
Notorious Woman
Notorious Woman was a 1974 BBC television serial based on the life of French author George Sand. It starred Rosemary Harris in the title role. The seven episodes were written by Harry W...
. More significantly he starred in the 13-part adaptation of H.E. Bates' novel Love for Lydia
Love for Lydia
Love for Lydia is a semi-autobiographical novel written by British author H. E. Bates, first published in 1952.-Plot:Lydia Aspen, a seemingly shy girl from a wealthy but isolated background, is encouraged by her aunts, her new carers, to discover the delights of growing up...
for London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
(1977), and attracted attention for his key role as the pipe-smoking German student, a romantic pairing with Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
in Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of Aidan Higgins
Aidan Higgins
-Life:His upbringing in a landed Catholic family in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, provided material for his first experimental novel, Langrishe, Go Down...
' novel Langrishe, Go Down
Langrishe, Go Down (film)
Langrishe, Go Down, the novel by Aidan Higgins , was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter, directed by David Jones, filmed for BBC Television in association with Raidió Teilifís Éireann, and first broadcast in September 1978 as a 90-minute BBC2 Play of the Week...
for BBC television (1978).
The role which brought him fame was that of Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited (TV serial)
Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. The teleplay is based on Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...
(1981). Brideshead reunited him with Anthony Andrews
Anthony Andrews
-Life and career:Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes , a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London...
, 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
The French Lieutenant's Woman (film)
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
opposite Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
.
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
Twickenham
Twickenham is a large suburban town southwest of central London. It is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan...
area of South West London, in Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début Oko wykol...
's independent film Moonlighting
Moonlighting (film)
Moonlighting is a 1982 British drama film written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is set in the early 1980s at the time of the Solidarity protests in Poland...
, 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
Elizabeth I (TV series)
Elizabeth I is a 2005 British television miniseries directed by Tom Hooper. The teleplay by Nigel Williams concentrates on the last 25 years of the nearly 45-year-long reign of Elizabeth I of England....
. 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
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
.
On 6 November 2008, TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
reported he would star as photographer Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
with Joan Allen
Joan Allen
Joan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
as painter Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, in a Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television, often referred to as Lifetime TV, or most commonly, Lifetime, is an American cable television specialty channel devoted to movies, sitcoms and dramas, all of which are either geared toward women or feature women in lead roles. The cable network is owned by A&E Television Networks...
O'Keeffe biopic.
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
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
called "Mask". He played Dr. Cap Jackson, a sex therapist
Sex therapy
Sex therapy is the treatment of sexual dysfunction, such as non-consummation, premature ejaculation , erectile dysfunction, low libido, unwanted sexual fetishes, sexual addiction, painful sex, or a lack of sexual confidence, assisting people who are recovering from sexual assault, problems commonly...
. He reprised the role on an episode that ran on 30 March 2011.
Irons stars in the 2011 U.S. premium cable network Showtime's series The Borgias
The Borgias (2011 TV series)
The Borgias is a 2011 historical fiction television series created by Neil Jordan.The series is based on the Borgia family, an Italian dynasty of Spanish origin, and stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI with David Oakes, François Arnaud, Holliday Grainger and Aidan Alexander as Juan, Cesare,...
, a highly fictionalized account of the Renaissance dynasty of that name. Irons portrays patriarch Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI , born Roderic Llançol i Borja was Pope from 1492 until his death on 18 August 1503. He is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, and his Italianized surname—Borgia—became a byword for the debased standards of the Papacy of that era, most notoriously the Banquet...
.
Film
Irons' made his film debut in NijinskyNijinsky (film)
Nijinsky is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Herbert Ross. Hugh Wheeler, whose screenplay centers on the later life and career of Vaslav Nijinsky, used the legendary dancer's personal diaries and his wife's 1933 book Life of Nijinsky as his primary source materials.-Synopsis:The film...
in 1980. He appeared sporadically in films during the 1980s, including the Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
winner The Mission in 1986, and in the dual role of twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...
's Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers (film)
Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland...
in 1988. Other films include Danny the Champion of the World
Danny, the Champion of the World (film)
Danny, the Champion of the World is a 1989 film starring British Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons, with his son, Samuel Irons, in the title role. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, and tells of a father and son who conspire to thwart a local businessman's plans to buy...
(1989), Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune
Reversal of Fortune is a 1990 film adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz...
(1990), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
, Kafka
Kafka (film)
Kafka is a 1991 mystery thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Ostensibly a biopic, based on the life of Franz Kafka, the film blurs the lines between fact and Kafka's fiction , creating a Kafkaesque atmosphere...
(1991), Damage (1993), M. Butterfly
M. Butterfly (film)
M. Butterfly is a 1993 romantic drama film directed by David Cronenberg. The screenplay was written by David Henry Hwang based on his play of the same name...
(1993), The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits (film)
The House of the Spirits is a 1993 German-Danish-Portuguese dramatic film starring Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas. The supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, María Conchita Alonso, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Jan Niklas...
(1993) appearing again with Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
and Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) co-starring Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
and Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...
, Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
's Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz...
(1996), the 1997 remake of Lolita
Lolita (1997 film)
Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze,...
and as the musketeer Aramis
Aramis
C. René d'Aramis de Vannes is a fictional character in the novels The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père...
opposite Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the 1998 film version of The Man in the Iron Mask
The Man in the Iron Mask (film)
There have been several films that have had the title The Man in the Iron Mask, or that have been based on the final section of the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which was itself based on the 18th century legend of The Man in the Iron Mask...
.
Other roles include the evil wizard Profion in the film Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons (film)
Dungeons & Dragons is a 2000 American fantasy film directed by Courtney Solomon and ostensibly based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game...
(2000) and Rupert Gould
Rupert Gould
Rupert Thomas Gould , was a Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology .-Life:...
in Longitude
Longitude (TV serial)
Longitude is a 2000 TV drama produced by Granada Productions and the A&E Network for Channel 4, first broadcast in 2000 in the UK on Channel 4 and the US on A&E. It is an adaptation of the 1997 book of the same title by Dava Sobel...
(2000). He played the Über-Morlock
Morlock
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. They dwell underground in the English countryside of 802,701 AD in a troglodyte civilization, maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build...
from the movie The Time Machine
The Time Machine (2002 film)
The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells, and the 1960 film screenplay by David Duncan...
(2002). In 2004, Irons played Severus Snape
Severus Snape
Severus Snape is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J.K. Rowling. In the first novel of the series, he is hostile toward Harry and is built up to be the primary antagonist until the final chapters. As the series progresses, Snape's character becomes more layered and...
in Comic Relief's Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
parody, "Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan".
In 2005, he appeared in the films Casanova opposite Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
, and Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's Kingdom of Heaven
Kingdom of Heaven (film)
Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic action film directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McKidd, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam...
. He has co-starred with John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
in two movies; The Man in the Iron Mask
The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film)
The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1998 British/American historical action film directed, produced, and written by Randall Wallace. It uses characters from Alexandre Dumas' D'Artagnan Romances, and is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of The Vicomte de Bragelonne. It also bears several...
(1998) and Eragon
Eragon (film)
Eragon is a 2006 fantasy-adventure film based on the novel of the same name by author Christopher Paolini. The cast includes Edward Speleers in the title role, Jeremy Irons, Garrett Hedlund, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle, John Malkovich, Djimon Hounsou, Alun Armstrong, Joss Stone, and the voice...
(2006), though they did not have any scenes together in Eragon.
In 2008, Irons co-starred with Ed Harris
Ed Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
and Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
in Appaloosa
Appaloosa (film)
Appaloosa is a 2008 American Western film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by crime writer Robert B. Parker. The film was directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott. Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons...
, directed by Harris. In 2011, Irons appeared alongside Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
in the thriller film Margin Call
Margin Call
Margin Call is a 2011 American independent drama film, written and directed by J.C. Chandor. The film has an ensemble cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgley...
.
Theatre
Irons has worked with the Royal Shakespeare CompanyRoyal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
three times in 1976, 1986–87 and 2010. In 1984, Irons made his New York debut and won a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for his Broadway performance opposite Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
in The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
.
After an absence from the London stage for 18 years, in 2006 he co-starred with Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...
in Christopher Hampton
Christopher Hampton
Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...
's stage adaptation of Sándor Márai
Sándor Márai
Sándor Márai was a Hungarian writer and journalist.-Biography:...
's novel Embers
Embers (novel)
Embers is a 1942 novel by the Hungarian writer Sándor Márai. Its original Hungarian title is A gyertyák csonkig égnek, which means "Candles burn until the end"...
at the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
.
He made his National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
debut playing Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
in Never So Good
Never So Good (play)
Never So Good is a 2008 play by Howard Brenton, which portrays the life and career of Harold Macmillan, a 20th-century Conservative British politician who served as Prime Minister...
, a new play by Howard Brenton
Howard Brenton
-Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...
which opened at the Lyttelton on 19 March 2008.
In 2009 Irons appeared on Broadway opposite Joan Allen
Joan Allen
Joan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
in the play Impressionism
Impressionism (play)
Impressionism is a 2009 play by Michael Jacobs about "an international photojournalist and a New York gallery owner whose unexpected brush with intimacy leads them to realize that there is an art to repairing broken lives."-Plot:...
. The play ran through 10 May 2009 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.
Audio
Irons read the audio bookAudio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...
recording of Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
, Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist.-Biography:Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical,...
's The Alchemist, and the audio book
Audio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...
recording of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
's Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
(he had also appeared in the 1997 film version of the novel)).
One of his best known film roles has turned out to be lending his distinctive voice to the villain Scar in The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
(1994). Irons has since provided voiceovers for three Disney World attractions. He narrated the Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth (Disney)
Spaceship Earth is the iconic and symbolic structure of Epcot, a theme park that is part of the Walt Disney World Resort. One of the most recognizable structures at the Walt Disney World Resort, it is not only the centerpiece and main focal point of Epcot, but also the name of the attraction housed...
ride, housed in the large geodesic globe at Epcot
Epcot
Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
, from November 1994 to July 2007. He was also the English narrator for the Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic
Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic
Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic is an attraction at Walt Disney Studios Park, Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée.The attraction premiered with the Grand Opening of the Walt Disney Studios Park on March 16, 2002....
at the Walt Disney Studios Park
Walt Disney Studios Park
Walt Disney Studios Park is the second theme park to open at Disneyland Paris, owned and operated by Euro Disney S.C.A.. It is located to the west of the hub, next door to Disneyland Park at the heart of the resort in Marne-la-Vallée....
at Disneyland Paris. He also voiced H.G. Wells in the English version of the former Disney attraction The Timekeeper
The Timekeeper
The Timekeeper was a 1992 Circle-Vision 360° film that was presented at three Disney parks around the world. It was the first Circle-Vision show that was arranged and filmed with an actual plot and not just visions of landscapes, and the first to utilize Audio-Animatronics...
. He also played 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
Marc Sinden
Marc Sinden is an English theatre producer, documentary director and actor. His father is the actor Sir Donald Sinden.-Theatre:...
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
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
's novel The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
, though the project was canceled. He will be the narrator for Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...
and Bill Pullman
Bill Pullman
William James "Bill" Pullman is an American film, television, and stage actor. Pullman made his film debut in the supporting role of Earl Mott in the 1986 film Ruthless People. He has since gone on to star in other films, including Spaceballs, Independence Day, Lost Highway, Casper and Scary Movie 4...
's brand-new Lewis and Clark movie from Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios is an American production company founded in 2000 by Joe Roth, a former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and 20th Century Fox. Revolution was formerly a strategic partner of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which distributed and marketed Revolution's films. The company's film division...
.
He serves as the English-language version of the audio guide for Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
in London.
Irons has served as voice-over in two big cat documentary films by National Geographic: Eye of the Leopard
Eye of the Leopard
Eye Of The Leopard, is a 2006 documentary film by National Geographic Channel that shows the journey, life, and growth of a young leopard cub named Legadema. The film is narrated by Jeremy Irons. Irons would later narrate The Last Lions, a 2011 National Geographic documentary film.-External links:*...
, which was released in 2006, and The Last Lions
The Last Lions
The Last Lions is a 2011 American documentary film by National Geographic, videotaped and directed by Dereck and Beverly Joubert. The film premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2011 and was released in select theaters on February 18, 2011...
, which is a 2011 motion-picture, released on 18 February.
Music
In 1985, Irons directed a music video for Carly SimonCarly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
and her heavily promoted single, "Tired of Being Blonde". Although the song was not a hit, the video —featuring the fast cutting, parallel narratives and heavy use of stylized visual effects that were a staple of pop videos at the time— received ample attention on MTV and other outlets.
In 1994 Jeremy Irons had a cameo role in the video for Elastica
Elastica
Elastica were an English alternative rock band that played punk rock-influenced music. They were best known for their 1995 album Elastica, which produced singles that charted in the US and the UK.-History:...
's hit single "Connection". Irons was one of the many naked men sitting down around Elastica as they performed the song. Irons has since claimed that this three-minute slice of nudity was his most enjoyable work to date.
Irons has contributed to other musical performances, recording William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
's Façade
Façade (poem)
Façade is a series of poems by Edith Sitwell, best known as part of Façade – An Entertainment in which the poems are recited over an instrumental accompaniment by William Walton. The poems and the music exist in several versions....
with Dame Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
, and in 1987 the songs from Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe are the duo of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon....
's My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...
, released on the Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
label.
He sang a selection of Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
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
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
's A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
, and two years later appeared as King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
in Lerner and Loewe's Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
.
Jeremy Irons also sang the song "Be Prepared" in the movie The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
. However, he actually sang only a section of the song after having vocal problems; Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings
James Jonah "Jim" Cummings is an American voice actor who has appeared in almost 100 roles. He has appeared in classic animated movies such as Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as taking on roles in more current films, such as Bee Movie, Princess and the Frog, and Winnie the Pooh.-Personal...
finished the last few lines.
Irons performed the Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
song "Make You Feel My Love" on the 2006 charity album Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars
Unexpected Dreams
Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars is a 2006 compilation album featuring various actors singing lullabies and other songs.-Album information:...
.
In 2009 Irons appeared on the Touchstone
Touchstone (band)
Touchstone is a rock band from the UK. The original band was formed by Rob Cottingham in 2001, after the release of his solo album 'Behind the Orchard Tree' - recorded at Linford Manor Studios in Milton Keynes . Adam Hodgson joined in 2003. Other more recent band members include bassist Paul...
album Wintercoast, recording a narrative introduction to the album. Recording took place in New York City in February 2009 during rehearsals for his Broadway play Impressionism
Impressionism (play)
Impressionism is a 2009 play by Michael Jacobs about "an international photojournalist and a New York gallery owner whose unexpected brush with intimacy leads them to realize that there is an art to repairing broken lives."-Plot:...
.
Personal life
Irons married Irish actress Sinéad CusackSinéad Cusack
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish stage, television and film actress. She has received two Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in Much Ado About Nothing , and again for Best Featured Actress in Rock 'n' Roll .-Background:...
in March 1978. They have two sons, Samuel James Brefni Irons (16 September 1978), who works as a photographer, and Maximilian Paul Diarmuid Irons (17 October 1985), also an actor, who appeared in the 2006 Burberry fashion campaign and Red Riding Hood. Both of Irons' 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 lives in the small town of Watlington
Watlington, Oxfordshire
Watlington is a market town and civil parish about south of Thame in Oxfordshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Christmas Common and Greenfield, both of which are in the Chiltern Hills. The M40 motorway is from Watlington.-History:...
, Oxfordshire and the village of Ballydehob, in County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Republic of Ireland.
He has been the patron since 2002 of the Thomley Activity Centre, an Oxfordshire non-profit activity centre for disabled children. Irons owns Kilcoe Castle (which he had painted a rusty pink) in County Cork, Ireland, and has become involved in local politics there. He also has another Irish residence in The Liberties
The Liberties
The Liberties of Dublin, Ireland were jurisdictions that existed since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century. They were town lands united to the city, but still preserving their own jurisdiction. The most important of these liberties were the Liberty of St...
, Dublin. Irons is a patron of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company
Chiltern Shakespeare Company
The Chiltern Shakespeare Company is a Shakespearean theatre company founded in 1989 that produces Shakespearean plays annually in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire...
. He is a fan of English football club Portsmouth
Portsmouth F.C.
Portsmouth Football Club is an English football club based in the city of Portsmouth. The club is nicknamed Pompey. Portsmouth's home matches have been played at Fratton Park since the club's formation in 1898. The team currently play in the Football League Championship after being relegated from...
.
Charity work
At the 1991 Tony Awards, Irons was one of the few celebrities to wear the recently created red ribbonRed ribbon
The red ribbon, as an awareness ribbon colored red, has several different meanings in different contexts. Foremost, it is the symbol of solidarity of people living with HIV/AIDS.-Awareness symbol:...
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
The Prison Phoenix Trust
The Prison Phoenix Trust is a charity registered in England that offers help to prisoners through the disciplines of meditation and yoga, working with silence and the breath. The PPT encourages prisoners – and prison staff – to take up a daily practice, and supports them with classes, free books...
, of which he is an active patron.
Politics
In 1998, Irons and his wife were named in the list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour PartyLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. In 2004, he publicly declared his support for the Countryside Alliance
Countryside Alliance
The Countryside Alliance is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as country sports, including hunting, shooting and angling...
, referring to the hunting ban as an "outrageous assault on civil liberties".
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.
Alternative medicine
He has been criticised in the British Medical JournalBritish Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
for his fundraising activities in support of The College of Medicine
The College of Medicine
The College of Medicine is a United Kingdom based organisation founded in 2010 for patients and healthcare professionals. The College states that it aims to "promote a more politically and professionally transparent, patient centred, and sustainable approach to healthcare, using whatever social or...
, an alternative medicine
Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....
lobby group
Advocacy
Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...
in the UK linked to Prince Charles
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
.
Theatre
Following training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre school Irons initially stayed with the company:- Florizel in The Winter's TaleThe Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
, Bristol Old VicBristol Old VicThe Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
1969 - Simon in Hay FeverHay FeverHay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
(Noël CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
) Bristol Old Vic 1969 - Nick in What the Butler SawWhat the Butler Saw (play)What the Butler Saw is a farce written by English playwright Joe Orton. It premièred at the Queen's Theatre in London on 5 March 1969. It was Orton's final play and the second to be performed after his death, following Funeral Games the year before....
(Joe OrtonJoe OrtonJohn Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
) Bristol Old Vic 1969 - Major BarbaraMajor Barbara (play)Major Barbara is a three act play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907.-Setting:*London*Act I: Lady Britomart's house in Wilton Crescent*Act II: The Salvation Army shelter in West Ham...
(ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
) Bristol Old Vic 1969 - A Servant of Two Masters (Carlo GoldoniCarlo GoldoniCarlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
) Bristol Old Vic 1969 - MacbethMacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, Bristol Old Vic 1969 - The Boy FriendThe Boy FriendThe Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...
(Sandy WilsonSandy WilsonSandy Wilson is an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend .-Biography:Wilson was born Alexander Galbraith Wilson in Sale, Greater Manchester, and was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford. During the war he served in the Royal Ordnance Corps in Great...
) Bristol Old Vic 1969 - As You Like ItAs You Like ItAs You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
, Bristol Old Vic 1970 - Oh! What a Lovely WarOh! What a Lovely WarOh! What a Lovely War is a musical film based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop created in 1963,...
, Little Theatre Bristol 1970 - The School for ScandalThe School for ScandalThe School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
(SheridanRichard Brinsley SheridanRichard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
) Little Theatre Bristol 1970 - John/Judas in GodspellGodspellGodspell is a musical by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak. It opened off Broadway on May 17, 1971, and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since, including a 2011 revival now playing on Broadway...
, RoundhouseRoundhouseA roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
and Wyndham's TheatreWyndham's TheatreWyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham . Located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, it was designed by W.G.R. Sprague about 1898, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916...
, November 1971–1973 - The Madman in The Diary of a Madman (Gogol), Act Inn 1973
- Don Pedro in Much Ado About NothingMuch Ado About NothingMuch Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
, Young Vic - Mick in The CaretakerThe CaretakerThe Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
(PinterHarold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
) Young Vic 1974 - Petruchio in The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
, New Shakespeare Company, RoundhouseRoundhouseA roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
1975 - Harry Thunder in Wild Oats (John O'KeefeJohn O'Keefe (British writer)John O'Keeffe was an Irish actor and dramatist. He wrote a number of farces and amusing dramatic pieces, many of which had great success...
) RSCRoyal Shakespeare CompanyThe Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
Aldwych TheatreAldwych TheatreThe Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
, December 1976; RSC Stratford and Piccadilly TheatrePiccadilly TheatreThe Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at 16 Denman Street, behind Piccadilly Circus and adjacent to the Regent Palace Hotel, in the City of Westminster, England.-Early years:Built by Bertie Crewe and Edward A...
1977 - Jameson in The Rear ColumnThe Rear ColumnThe Rear Column is a play by Simon Gray set in the jungle of the Congo Free State in 1887-88. The story begins after explorer Henry Morton Stanley, has gone to relieve Emin Pasha, governor of Equatoria, from a siege by Mahdist forces...
(Simon GraySimon GraySimon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
), Globe TheatreGlobe TheatreThe Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
, February 1978 – Clarence Derwent Award - Henry in The Real ThingThe Real Thing (play)The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
(Tom StoppardTom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
) New York 1984 —Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Actor - Leontes in The Winter's TaleThe Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
, Royal Shakespeare TheatreRoyal Shakespeare TheatreThe Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
Stratford 1986) - Willmore in The RoverThe Rover (play)The Rover or The Banish'd Cavaliers is a play in two parts written by the English author Aphra Behn.Having famously worked as a spy for Charles II against the Dutch, Behn's meager incomes was lost when the king refused to pay her expenses. She turned to writing for an income.The Rover premiered...
(Aphra BehnAphra BehnAphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
) RSC Swan TheatreSwan Theatre (Stratford)The Swan Theatre is a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is built on to the side of the larger Royal Shakespeare Theatre, occupying the Victorian Gothic structure that formerly housed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that preceded the RST but was...
and Mermaid TheatreMermaid TheatreThe Mermaid Theatre was a theatre at Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars, in the City of London and the first built there since the time of Shakespeare...
1986 - Richard II in Richard IIRichard II (play)King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
, RSC Royal Shakespeare Theatre, 1986, Barbican Theatre 1987 - Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night MusicA Little Night MusicA Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
(SondheimStephen SondheimStephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
) New York, 2003 - Russell in CelebrationCelebration (play)Celebration is a play by British playwright Harold Pinter. It was first presented as a double-bill with Pinter's first play The Room on Thursday 16 March 2000 at the Almeida Theatre in London.-Synopsis:...
, a Pinter staged reading, Gate TheatreGate TheatreThe Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists...
, Dublin/Albery Theatre, 2005 - Henrik in Embers (Christopher HamptonChristopher HamptonChristopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...
/Sándor MáraiSándor MáraiSándor Márai was a Hungarian writer and journalist.-Biography:...
novel) Duke of York's TheatreDuke of York's TheatreThe Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
March 2006 - Harold Macmillan in Never So GoodNever So Good (play)Never So Good is a 2008 play by Howard Brenton, which portrays the life and career of Harold Macmillan, a 20th-century Conservative British politician who served as Prime Minister...
(Howard BrentonHoward Brenton-Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...
) National TheatreRoyal National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
Lyttelton, March 2008 - Thomas Buckle in ImpressionismImpressionism (play)Impressionism is a 2009 play by Michael Jacobs about "an international photojournalist and a New York gallery owner whose unexpected brush with intimacy leads them to realize that there is an art to repairing broken lives."-Plot:...
(Michael JacobsMichael JacobsMichael Jacobs is a writer and producer whose work has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, television and film. He is the creator/producer of several popular television series including Boy Meets World, Dinosaurs, Charles in Charge and My Two Dads...
) Gerald Schoenfeld TheatreGerald Schoenfeld TheatreThe Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 236 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan named for Gerald Schoenfeld....
Broadway, March 2009
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Nijinsky Nijinsky (film) Nijinsky is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Herbert Ross. Hugh Wheeler, whose screenplay centers on the later life and career of Vaslav Nijinsky, used the legendary dancer's personal diaries and his wife's 1933 book Life of Nijinsky as his primary source materials.-Synopsis:The film... |
Mikhail Fokine | |
| 1981 | Charles Henry Smithson/ Mike |
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Best Actor in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.-Superlatives:... |
|
| 1981 | Brideshead Revisited Brideshead Revisited (TV serial) Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. The teleplay is based on Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited... |
Charles Ryder | |
| 1982 | Moonlighting Moonlighting (film) Moonlighting is a 1982 British drama film written and directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is set in the early 1980s at the time of the Solidarity protests in Poland... |
Nowak | |
| 1983 | Betrayal Betrayal (1983 film) Betrayal is a film adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones. It was critically well received, praised notably by New York Times film critic Vincent Canby and by... |
Jerry | |
| 1984 | Harold | ||
| 1984 | Swann in Love | Charles Swann | |
| 1986 | Father Gabriel | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951... |
|
| 1988 | Guy Jones | ||
| 1987 | My Fair Lady My Fair Lady My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe... |
Henry Higgins | |
| 1988 | Dead Ringers Dead Ringers (film) Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland... |
Beverly Mantle/ Elliot Mantle |
|
| 1989 | Australia Australia (1989 film) -Cast:* Fanny Ardant as Jeanne Gauthier* Jeremy Irons as Edouard Pierson* Tchéky Karyo as Julien Pierson* Agnès Soral as Agnès Deckers* Hélène Surgère as Odette Pierson* Maxime Laloux as François Gauthier* Patrick Bauchau as André Gauthier... |
Edouard Pierson | |
| 1989 | Danny, the Champion of the World Danny, the Champion of the World (film) Danny, the Champion of the World is a 1989 film starring British Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons, with his son, Samuel Irons, in the title role. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, and tells of a father and son who conspire to thwart a local businessman's plans to buy... |
William Smith | |
| 1990 | Reversal of Fortune Reversal of Fortune Reversal of Fortune is a 1990 film adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz... |
Claus von Bülow Claus von Bülow Claus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born... |
|
| 1991 | Prisoner | ||
| 1991 | Kafka Kafka (film) Kafka is a 1991 mystery thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Ostensibly a biopic, based on the life of Franz Kafka, the film blurs the lines between fact and Kafka's fiction , creating a Kafkaesque atmosphere... |
Kafka | |
| 1992 | H.G. Wells | ||
| 1992 | Waterland Waterland (film) Waterland is a 1992 film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Graham Swift. The film starred Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Ethan Hawke, and John Heard.-Plot:... |
Tom Crick | |
| 1992 | Damage | Dr. Stephen Fleming | |
| 1993 | M. Butterfly M. Butterfly (film) M. Butterfly is a 1993 romantic drama film directed by David Cronenberg. The screenplay was written by David Henry Hwang based on his play of the same name... |
René Gallimard | |
| 1993 | Esteban Trueba | ||
| 1994 | Spaceship Earth Spaceship Earth (Disney) Spaceship Earth is the iconic and symbolic structure of Epcot, a theme park that is part of the Walt Disney World Resort. One of the most recognizable structures at the Walt Disney World Resort, it is not only the centerpiece and main focal point of Epcot, but also the name of the attraction housed... |
Narrator | |
| 1994 | Scar (Voice) | ||
| 1995 | Die Hard with a Vengeance | Simon Gruber | |
| 1996 | Stealing Beauty Stealing Beauty Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz... |
Alex | Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture |
| 1997 | Chinese Box Chinese Box Chinese Box is a 1997 movie directed by Wayne Wang and starring Jeremy Irons, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung and Michael Hui.The movie is set and was made at the time of Hong Kong's handover to the People's Republic of China on June 30, 1997... |
John | |
| 1997 | Lolita Lolita (1997 film) Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze,... |
Humbert Humbert | |
| 1998 | Aramis Aramis C. René d'Aramis de Vannes is a fictional character in the novels The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père... |
||
| 1999 | Islands of Adventure Islands of Adventure Universal's Islands of Adventure is a theme park located in Orlando, Florida. It opened May 28, 1999 as part of an expansion that, along with CityWalk Entertainment District, the Portofino Bay Hotel, and Hard Rock hotel, converted Universal Studios Florida into the Universal Orlando Resort... : Poseidon's Fury: Escape from the Lost City |
Poseidon | voice actor Voice acting Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called... |
| 2000 | Dungeons & Dragons Dungeons & Dragons (film) Dungeons & Dragons is a 2000 American fantasy film directed by Courtney Solomon and ostensibly based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game... |
Profion | |
| 2000 | Longitude Longitude (TV serial) Longitude is a 2000 TV drama produced by Granada Productions and the A&E Network for Channel 4, first broadcast in 2000 in the UK on Channel 4 and the US on A&E. It is an adaptation of the 1997 book of the same title by Dava Sobel... |
Rupert Gould Rupert Gould Rupert Thomas Gould , was a Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology .-Life:... |
Television series (4 episodes) |
| 2001 | Jack Elgin | ||
| 2001 | Beckett on Film Beckett on Film Beckett on Film was a project aimed at making film versions of all nineteen of Samuel Beckett's stage plays, with the exception of the early and unperformed Eleutheria. This endeavour was successfully completed, with the first films being shown in 2001.The project was conceived by Michael Colgan,... – Ohio Impromptu Ohio Impromptu Ohio Impromptu is a “playlet” by Samuel Beckett.Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and... |
Reader/ Listener |
|
| 2002 | Callas Forever Callas Forever Callas Forever is a 2002 biographical film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Sherman. It is an homage to Zeffirelli's friend, internationally acclaimed opera diva Maria Callas, whom he directed on stage in Norma, La Traviata, and Tosca.- Plot :The partially... |
Larry Kelly | |
| 2002 | Last Call | F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost... |
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| 2002 | Über-Morlock | ||
| 2003 | And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen And now... Ladies and Gentlemen And now... Ladies and Gentlemen is a thriller film released in 2002. It is directed by Claude Lelouch and stars Jeremy Irons and French singer Patricia Kaas. Patricia Kaas also released a song with the same title on her 2002 album Piano Bar. Tracks from the album, which according the cover notes... |
Valentin Valentin | |
| 2003 | Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites is a 2003 historical documentary that was produced for PBS. The documentary features original music by Erik Friedlander, and is narrated by an all-star voice-cast which includes F... |
Voice | |
| 2003 | Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There Broadway: The Golden Age is a 2004 documentary by Rick McKay, telling the story of the "golden age" of Broadway by the oral history of the legendary actors of the 40s and 50s, incorporating rare lost footage of actual performances and never-before-seen personal home movies and photos.-The Cast:The... |
Himself | |
| 2004 | Mathilde Mathilde (film) Mathilde is a 2004 drama film written and directed by Nina Mimica and starring Jeremy Irons, Nutsa Kukhianidze and Sinéad Cusack. It was a co-production between several different countries. A young girl attempts to kill a UN peacekeeper after the war in Croatia, leading to an investigation into the... |
Pukovnik Unprofora | |
| 2004 | Antonio | ||
| 2004 | Being Julia Being Julia Being Julia is a 2004 drama film with comic undertones directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham... |
Michael Gosselyn | Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture |
| 2005 | Gallipoli Gallipoli (2005 film) Gallipoli is a 2005 film by Turkish filmmaker Tolga Örnek. It is a documentary about the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, narrated by both sides, the Turks on one side and the British soldiers and Anzacs on the other side.-Synopsis:Through the use of surviving diaries, letters and photographs from... |
Gallipoli Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"... |
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| 2005 | Kingdom of Heaven Kingdom of Heaven (film) Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic action film directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McKidd, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam... |
Tiberias | |
| 2005 | Casanova | Pucci | |
| 2006 | Inland Empire Inland Empire (film) Inland Empire, sometimes styled as INLAND EMPIRE, is a 2006 mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. It was his first feature-length film since 2001's Mulholland Drive, and shares many similarities with that film. It premiered in Italy at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2006... |
Kingsley Stewart | |
| 2006 | Eragon Eragon (film) Eragon is a 2006 fantasy-adventure film based on the novel of the same name by author Christopher Paolini. The cast includes Edward Speleers in the title role, Jeremy Irons, Garrett Hedlund, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle, John Malkovich, Djimon Hounsou, Alun Armstrong, Joss Stone, and the voice... |
Brom | |
| 2006 | Elizabeth I | Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death... |
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| 2008 | Havelock Vetinari Havelock Vetinari Havelock Vetinari, Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, is the fictional ruler of the city state of Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, a series of over thirty books describing a parallel universe whose main world has reflections of - even more or less subtle jokes about - our... |
Television miniseries | |
| 2008 | Appaloosa Appaloosa (film) Appaloosa is a 2008 American Western film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by crime writer Robert B. Parker. The film was directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott. Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons... |
Randall Bragg | |
| 2009 | Alonso Avellaneda | ||
| 2009 | Georgia O'Keeffe | Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form... |
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| 2011 | Margin Call Margin Call Margin Call is a 2011 American independent drama film, written and directed by J.C. Chandor. The film has an ensemble cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgley... |
John Tuld | |
| 2011 | Rodrigo Borgia Pope Alexander VI Pope Alexander VI , born Roderic Llançol i Borja was Pope from 1492 until his death on 18 August 1503. He is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, and his Italianized surname—Borgia—became a byword for the debased standards of the Papacy of that era, most notoriously the Banquet... |
Television series |
External links
- Jeremy Irons Profile by The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
(13 March 2008)