Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons, born in 1948, British actor, known for the introspective intelligence of his portrayals. He was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England, and educated at Sherbourne and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. After some theater work early in his career, Irons achieved prominence with a role in the British television series Brideshead Revisited (1981), based on the novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh. Although Irons had already made his motion-picture debut in Nijinsky (1980), the television series brought him the prestigious lead role in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), an ambitious production based on the 1969 novel by British writer John Fowles, with a screenplay by renowned English playwright Harold Pinter. Irons was cast opposite American actor Meryl Streep, and the production's luxuriant Victorian settings, unconventional narrative structure, and rich dialogue all favored Irons's acting style.

His subsequent roles include the lead in Swann in Love (1984), from a work by French writer Marcel Proust, and directed by German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff. Irons's dual role as both twin brothers in Dead Ringers (1988) received critical acclaim, and he won an Academy Award for best actor for Reversal of Fortune (1990), in which he plays the role of a man suspected of murdering his wealthy wife. Other notable film performances include leading roles in Kafka (1991), based on the life of Austrian (Czech) writer Franz Kafka, and Lolita (1996), based on the novel by Russian American writer Vladimir Nabokov. He also appeared in the films The Merchant of Venice (2004), Being Julia (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and the television miniseries Elizabeth I (2005), for which he won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor.