Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and began his professional career on stage. In 1971, he appeared as John the Baptist and Judas in Godspell in London. His early television credits included Play Away, Notorious Woman (1974), Love for Lydia (1977) and Langrishe, Go Down (1978). He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1976, 1986–1987 and 2010. In 1982, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Irons made his film debut in Nijinsky (1980). In 1981, he starred as Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited and appeared opposite Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman. His subsequent film credits included Moonlighting (1982), The Mission (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Danny the Champion of the World (1989), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Kafka (1991), Damage (1992), M. Butterfly (1993), The House of the Spirits (1993), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Stealing Beauty (1996), Chinese Box (1997), Lolita (1997) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Reversal of Fortune (1990).

Irons voiced Scar in Disney's The Lion King (1994) and later reprised the role in Fantasmic and Once Upon a Studio (2023). His other voice and narration work included The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1997), Eye of the Leopard (2006), The Last Lions (2011), The Unlikely Leopard (2012), Game of Lions (2014), Jade Eyed Leopard (2020), Revealed: Ultimate Enemies (2022) and Revealed: Eternal Enemies (2022). He also narrated the Disney attractions Spaceship Earth, Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic and The Timekeeper.

His stage credits in the 2000s included A Little Night Music (2003), Camelot (2005), Embers (2006), Never So Good (2008) and Impressionism (2009). His film and television work during the decade included Dungeons & Dragons (2000), Longitude (2000), The Time Machine (2002), The Merchant of Venice (2004), Being Julia (2004), Casanova (2005), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Eragon (2006), Inland Empire (2006), Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (2008), Appaloosa (2008) and Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). He won the Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his performance in Elizabeth I (2005).

Beginning in 2011, Irons starred as Rodrigo Borgia in The Borgias (2011–2013) and appeared in Margin Call (2011) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2011). He starred in and executive produced the documentary Trashed (2012) and portrayed G. H. Hardy in The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015). He played Alfred Pennyworth in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023). His later screen credits include Red Sparrow (2018), Watchmen (2019), House of Gucci (2021) and Munich – The Edge of War (2022).

Irons has also worked extensively as an audiobook narrator and performer of literary works, including The Waste Land (2012), Four Quartets (2014), The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (2015), Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (2016) and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (2020). In 2017, he performed readings from the correspondence between Albert Camus and Maria Casares and appeared in Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes in Rome. In 2024, he joined the cast of The Morning Show for its fourth season as Alex Levy's father and performed Scar's song at the Hollywood Bowl's The Lion King 30th Anniversary concert.