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Jeremy John Irons (born September 19, 1948) is an Academy Award,
Tony Award, Screen Actors Guild, two-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning
English film, television and stage actor.
 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. Irons has a brother, Christopher. He was educated at Sherborne
School in Dorset, (c. 1962-1966), a member of Abbey House, where he rose to the
modest rank of Hallkeeper — a disciplinary role he performed with humour and
compassion. 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 video 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, and is the father of two sons,
Samuel James Irons (September 16, 1978) and Maximilian Paul Irons (October 17,
1985), both of whom have appeared in films with their father. He now lives in the
small town of Watlington in Oxfordshire.
At the 1991 Tony Awards, Irons was one of the few celebrities to wear the recently
created red ribbon to support the fight against AIDS, and he was the first
celebrity to wear it onscreen. He supports a number of other charities, including
the Prison Phoenix Trust of which he is an active patron.
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").
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.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Jeremy
Irons - Projector - Biography
