Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 5, 1994 TAG: 9405050046
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES FALLON and MERLE GINSBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's why he has arrived at the Savoy Hotel in London on his speedy BMW motorbike, even though it's raining and cold and it's two hours from his home in Oxfordshire. The ride excited him - and it beat the lulling comfort of being sealed inside a four-door sedan.
Irons would rather be anything but bored - discomfort gets his juices going, and difficulty, he claims, makes him better.
"The bike was something I always wanted and finally, when I hit 40, I decided to get it," he says decidedly, five years later. "I've always felt irresponsible and 18."
Then why does he always look so responsible and foreboding?
This irony carries over to a lot of edgy characters in the Irons oeuvre: the priest in "The Mission" (1986), the twins in "Dead Ringers" (1988), his chilly Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune" (1990), the teacher in "Waterland" (1992) and the sexually obsessed victim in "Damage" (1992) - all tortured fiery souls trapped in the body and face of The Perfect Englishman.
"You think he's so refined," Irons' oft co-star Glenn Close once said of him, "but he's actually very macho! He's a real man, who happens to have very good manners."
The manners stop at smoking - Irons has been chain-smoking for years and feels a lot edgier without a cigarette in his hand, even if the other one is picking up a sandwich.
The consummate film actor lets us in on a little secret: "I find the actual process of filmmaking tedious and slow," he admits. "Unless I'm really involved, working closely with the director, I find making a film intolerable."
While directors confer he mostly "gets it" in one take, Irons prefers four or five, and he'll provide a different side of a character in each one, so the director has more choices.
He says he has never aspired to be a hot star, such as his countrymen Anthony Hopkins, Kenneth Branagh and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Too easy. Once you're there, you have to maintain it, play your image, not disappoint your fans.
Irons says he picks roles for their idiosyncrasies, their challenges and quirks, not for their obvious appeal.
"You can never be sure how a movie's going to do," he shrugs. "The thing is that there is a little part of me that doesn't want to be more successful than I already am. I am comfortable at this level. I find I want to be away from my family less and less. As I go through my 40s, my priorities have changed."
Even with the '91 Oscar, Irons is aware that he's now losing some roles to fellow Oscar winner Hopkins, "which is surprising since Tony is 11 years older than me."
He was set to play the butler Stevens in "The Remains of The Day" opposite Meryl Streep when Mike Nichols was going to direct from a Harold Pinter script.
When Nichols stepped down to produce James Ivory's version, Ivory had his own cast in mind.
Irons also says he was offered the role of Hannibal Lector in Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), the film that brought Hopkins to international stardom.
He turned it down because it was "too violent" - after doing drug-addicted twin gynecologists and an accused wife murderer.
Ah, well. Neither was an opportunity missed, claims Irons, who chooses roles simply because they suit where he is emotionally and psychologically - and for the other people involved in the film.
No doubt, this is why he chose his next film, Bille August's "House of the Spirits," in which he plays the bullying patriarch of a family that includes Streep and Close, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas.
The film follows three generations of the Trueba family, from the politically stable '20s to the revolution in the '70s, all with a touch of magical realism that was so much a part of Isabel Allende's novel.
Irons' Esteban Trueba is husband to Streep, brother to Close and intimidating and rotten to everybody. Another Irons' bastard in his recent catalog of dark types.
The actor didn't always find such roles interesting.
For the first half of his career, Irons played the handsome leading man. It was a bit boring, actually, so he changed paths midstream.
"I had advice not to do `Dead Ringers,"' he recalls. "But all I saw was an opportunity for a performance. I knew they weren't particularly likable, the twins. But more and more, I find myself trying to escape this `smell' of the English gentleman. That's a part I could have played for years."
He laughs out loud when that perennial quote, "the thinking woman's heartthrob," comes up. "That kind of thing isn't hard to take," Irons chuckles. "You just have to keep reminding yourself that it's sort of unreal.
"None of these women knows what I'm really like. They become attracted to a character, not a person. Actually, I've never really liked the way I looked."
He pauses, then adds quickly, "Of course, it's better than people going, `Jeremy Irons - yuck!"'
by CNB