JEREMY IRONS

'Jeremy John Irons' (born September 191948) is an Academy Award, Tony Award, Screen Actors Guild, two-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning English film, television and stage actor.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Personal life

Trivia

Quotes

Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight to Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant, and Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer Sharpe, a homemaker. Part of his maternal ancestry is Irish, and his great-grandfather was one of the first Metropolitan Policemen and later a Chartist. Who Do You Think You Are? Irons has a brother, Christopher. He was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset, (c. 1962-1966). He achieved some fame as the drummer and harmonica player (most memorably for his rendition of "Moon River" 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.

Career

Irons trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and is now president of its fundraising appeal. He performed a number of plays and supported himself by busking on the streets of Bristol, before appearing on the London stage as John the Baptist opposite David Essex in ''Godspell''. After several appearances on British television, including the children's television series ''Playaway'', and an adaptation of the H.E. Bates novel ''Love for Lydia'' in 1977, his film debut came in 1980 in ''Nijinsky''. The role which brought him fame was that of Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's ''Brideshead Revisited'' in 1981. ''Brideshead'' reunited him with Anthony Andrews, with whom he had appeared in ''The Pallisers'' seven years earlier. Also in 1981, he starred in the film ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' opposite Meryl Streep.
In 1985, Irons directed a music video for Carly Simon 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. Irons has contributed to other musical performances, recording William Walton's Façade with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, and the songs from My Fair Lady with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. He is also known for playing the evil wizard Profion, along with Bruce Payne as Damodor, in the 2000 film, Dungeons and Dragons, from Time Warner studio New Line Cinema. The film was also based on the Tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons.
In 1984 Irons won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance opposite Glenn Close in ''The Real Thing''. 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 physicians in David Cronenberg's ''Dead Ringers'' in 1988. Other films include ''Reversal of Fortune'' (1990), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, ''Kafka'' (1991), ''Damage'' (1993), ''The House of the Spirits'' (1993) appearing again with Glenn Close and Meryl Streep, ''Die Hard With a Vengeance'' (1995), 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'' (1998). In 2004, Irons played Severus Snape in Comic Relief's Harry Potter parody, "Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan". 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''. Irons read the audio book recording of Paulo Coelho's ''''The Alchemist''''.
One of his best known film roles has turned out to be the voice of Scar in ''The Lion King'' (1994). Irons has since provided voiceovers for two Disney World attractions. He narrated the ''Spaceship Earth'' ride, housed in the large geodesic globe at Epcot, and voiced H.G. Wells in the English version of the former Disney attraction The Timekeeper. In 2005, he appeared in the films ''Casanova'' opposite Heath Ledger, and Ridley Scott's ''Kingdom of Heaven''. Also in 2005, Irons won both an Emmy award and a Golden Globe award for his supporting role in the TV mini-series, Elizabeth I. He is appearing on the West End stage in the play ''Embers''.
Irons was one of the participants in the third series of their documentary series ''Who Do You Think You Are?''.
He also played the storyteller Brom in the 2006 film version of Eragon. He will be the narrator for Val Kilmer and Bill Pullman's brand-new Lewis and Clark movie from Revolution Studios.

Personal life

Irons is married to Irish actress Sinéad Cusack (since September 161978), and is the father of two sons, ''Samuel James Irons'' and ''Maximilian Paul Irons'' (October 171985), both of whom have appeared in films with their father. He now lives in the small town of Watlington in Oxfordshire.

Trivia

At the 1991 Tony Awards, Irons was one of the few celebrities to wear the recently created red ribbon to support the fight against AIDS, and he was the first celebrity to wear it onscreen.^[1][2] He supports a number of other charities, including the Prison Phoenix Trust of which he is an active patron.^[3]
He is famous among fans of ''The Simpsons'' for having a name difficult to anagram (when Lisa tries to come up with an anagram of his name, the best she can do is "Jeremy's Iron").^[4] One anagram of 'Jeremy Irons' is 'Minor jersey.'
Irons owns Kilcoe Castle (which he had painted a rusty pink) in County Cork, Ireland, and has become involved in local politics there.
Irons is a fan of English football club Portsmouth F.C. He sang a number of Noel Coward songs at the 1999 Last Night of Proms in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Coward's birth.
Upset by the sight of beer-soaked tables and overflowing ashtrays in a lounge at Shannon airport in southwestern Ireland during a flight delay on August 8th, 2002, he grabbed a cleaner's trolley and cloth and started mopping up the mess, much to the surprise of fellow passengers.
The "Series of Unfortunate Events" novels by Daniel Handler make reference to three of his characters. In Reversal of Fortune, he plays Klaus von Bulow, husband to Sunny von Bulow. Two of the lead characters in Handler's novels are named Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. In The Carnivorous Carnival, Klaus and his other sister Violet disguise themselves as circus freaks named Beverly and Elliot, which are the names of the identical twin gynecologists that Irons plays in Dead Ringers.
Irons has worked with John Malkovich in two movies; ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1998) and ''Eragon'' (2006), though they didn't have scenes together in the second movie.

Quotes

★ "I've never been passionate about acting, and I find more and more that I work to live the life I want to live. An actor like Al Pacino lives to act. I'm not sure though, there's something about the detachment I have, the feeling of the lack of importance about what I do, that is healthy."

★ "As you get older, you look back and try to make sense of the sort of person you have become. And I think the most important thing that happened in my childhood was the first night I went to boarding school at the age of seven. I remember that night, and the loneliness. Also, my parents' marriage broke up when I was 15. But I think it was that first night at seven years old when I felt something had broken, and I've spent my life trying to get back to that feeling of home. It's the same sense of family that you find in the theater and movies. In fact, I'm hoping to make a film about that very subject - the need for home. You don't really have a home until you have children. And that home is created by the children."

★ "If we have to pay taxes [for Emmy gift bags], so be it. But don't spend it on bombs, for Christ's sake."

★ "The movie industry is run by accountants in Hollywood and it's as simple as this; everyone has a number on their computer. They can look up Jeremy Irons and see what my last five movies have made. Say you want to make a $20m picture, which is relatively cheap. If Jeremy makes $9m, the director makes $5m, then you need a leading lady, and they just go through those figures - that's how casting happens. And none of my movies has made a lot of money."

★ (When asked by an interviewer about why he accepted his role in ''Dungeons & Dragons'') "Are you kidding? I'd just bought a castle, I had to pay for it somehow!"

Filmography

Features:

★ ''Nijinsky'' (1980)

★ ''Moonlighting'' (1982)

★ ''The Wild Duck'' (1983)

★ ''Betrayal'' (1983)

★ ''Swann in Love'' (1984)

★ ''The Mission'' (1986)

★ ''A Chorus of Disapproval'' (1988)

★ ''Dead Ringers'' (1988)

★ ''Australia'' (1989)

★ ''Reversal of Fortune'' (1990)

★ ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1991)

★ ''Kafka'' (1991)

★ ''Waterland'' (1992)

★ ''Damage'' (1992)

★ ''M. Butterfly'' (1993)

★ ''The House of the Spirits'' (1993)

★ ''The Lion King'' (1994) (voice)

★ ''Die Hard: With a Vengeance'' (1995)

★ ''Stealing Beauty'' (1996)

★ ''Chinese Box'' (1997)

★ ''Lolita'' (1997)

★ ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1998)

★ ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (2000)

★ ''The Fourth Angel'' (2001)

★ ''The Time Machine'' (2002)

★ ''And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...'' (2002)

★ ''Callas Forever'' (2002)

★ '' (2003) (documentary)

★ ''Hittites'' (2003) (documentary) (narrator)

★ ''Mathilde'' (2004)

★ ''The Merchant of Venice'' (2004)

★ ''Being Julia'' (2004)

★ ''Gelibolu'' (2005) (documentary) (narrator)

★ ''Gallipoli'' (2005) (documentary) (narrator)

★ ''Kingdom of Heaven'' (2005)

★ ''Casanova'' (2005)

★ ''Inland Empire'' (2006)

★ ''Eragon'' (2006)
Short Subjects:

★ ''The Timekeeper'' (1992)

★ ''Spaceship Earth'' (1994) (narrator)

★ ''Poseidon's Fury: Escape from the Lost City'' (1999) (voice)

References

1. World Aids Day
2. Why a Red Ribbon means Aids
3. Prison Phoenix Trust
4. Lisa's Anagram

External links

★ Jeremy Irons website

★

★

★ BFI: Jeremy Irons