Jeremy Irons

Irons has a brother, Christopher (born 1943), and a sister, Felicity Anne (born 1944).

Jeremy John Irons (born 19 September 1948) is an English actor and activist.

He is known for his roles on stage and screen having won numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.

He is one of the few actors who have achieved the "Triple Crown of Acting" having won Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Awards for Film, Television and Theatre.

Irons was born on 19 September 1948 in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, to Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant, and Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer (née Sharpe).

He was educated at the independent Sherborne School in Dorset from 1962 to 1966.

He was the drummer and harmonica player in a four-man school band called the Four Pillars of Wisdom.

Irons trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later became president of its fundraising appeal.

Irons received classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and started acting career on stage in 1969.

He appeared in many West End theatre productions, including the Shakespeare plays The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and Richard II.

Irons's television career began on British television in the early 1970s, including appearances on the children's series Play Away and as Franz Liszt in the BBC series Notorious Woman (1974).

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 has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company three times in 1976, 1986–1987 and 2010.

More significantly, he starred in the 13-part adaptation of H. E. Bates's novel Love for Lydia (1977) for London Weekend Television, 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's novel Langrishe, Go Down (1978) for BBC Television.

Irons made his film debut in Nijinsky in 1980.

His first major film role came in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor.

On television, Irons's break-out role came in the ITV series Brideshead Revisited (1981).

The role which significantly raised his profile was Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (1981).

First broadcast on ITV, the show ranks among the most successful British television dramas, with Irons receiving a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

which is frequently ranked among the greatest British television dramas as well as greatest literary adaptations.

Brideshead reunited him with Anthony Andrews, with whom he had appeared in The Pallisers seven years earlier.

Around the same time he starred in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman (also 1981) opposite Meryl Streep.

After starring in dramas such as Moonlighting (1982), Betrayal (1983), The Mission (1986), and Dead Ringers (1988), he received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune (1990).

After these major successes, he played the leading role of an exiled Polish building contractor, working in the Twickenham area of southwest London, in Jerzy Skolimowski's independent film Moonlighting (1982).

In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, receiving the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

After years of success in the West End in London, Irons made his New York debut in 1984 and won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance opposite Glenn Close in The Real Thing.

In addition, he appeared in the Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Mission in 1986 and in the dual role of twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers alongside Geneviève Bujold in 1988.

Irons would later win Best Actor for Dead Ringers from the New York Film Critics Circle that year.

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) working again with David Cronenberg, The House of the Spirits (1993) appearing again with Glenn Close and Meryl Streep.

Other notable films include Kafka (1991), Damage (1992), M. Butterfly (1993), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Lolita (1997), The Merchant of Venice (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Appaloosa (2008), and Margin Call (2011).

On 23 March 1991, he hosted Saturday Night Live on NBC in the US, and appeared as Sherlock Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes' Surprise Party sketch.

He voiced the role of Scar in Disney's The Lion King (1994) and played Alfred Pennyworth in the DC Extended Universe (2016–2023) series of films.

He lent his deep baritone voice as Scar in The Lion King (1994).

Afterwards, he portrayed as Simon Gruber in 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 wicked wizard Profion in the film Dungeons and Dragons (2000) and Rupert Gould in Longitude (2000).

He played the Über-Morlock in the film The Time Machine (2002).

In 2004, Irons played the title character in The Merchant of Venice.

He received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance in the miniseries Elizabeth I (2005).

He starred as Pope Alexander VI in the Showtime historical series The Borgias (2011–2013) and as Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias in HBO's Watchmen (2019).

In October 2011, he was named the Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.