Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons has built a career around a rare combination of authority, melancholy and menace. Born in Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1948, he trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and established himself on stage before becoming a familiar presence across film and television. His early theatre work included playing John the Baptist and Judas in the long-running London production of Godspell. Television brought wider attention, particularly through his performance as Charles Ryder in the 1981 adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. That same year, he appeared opposite Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, helping establish the measured, searching screen persona that would shape much of his work. Irons has rarely been confined to sympathetic leading men. In David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, he played twin gynaecologists, earning Best Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle. Reversal of Fortune brought him the Academy Award for Best Actor, while Die Hard with a Vengeance gave him the role of Simon Gruber, a villain built as much around composure as threat. His voice became equally recognisable through Scar in Disney’s The Lion King, one of his best-known film roles. That vocal presence has carried through narration, audiobooks and documentary work, including an Emmy-winning performance as narrator of Game of Lions. On television, he played Robert Dudley opposite Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I, winning both an Emmy and a Golden Globe, and later appeared as Adrian Veidt in HBO’s Watchmen. His more recent film roles include Alfred Pennyworth in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League and The Flash, Rodolfo Gucci in House of Gucci, and Neville Chamberlain in Munich – The Edge of War. Theatre has remained a substantial part of his career. His Broadway performance in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing earned him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, confirming the range behind that unmistakable screen voice.