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HOW FORTUNE SMILED ON IRONS

 

 

Daily Express

Thursday April 19,2007

THE mantelpiece of Jeremy Irons would be missing a shiny Oscar statuette if the 58-year-old had had his way and refused his role in the film Reversal Of Fortune, for which he won the best actor Oscar in 1990.

“I tried to turn it down. I kept saying no but [his co-star] Glenn Close persuaded me.”

Reflecting on playing socialite Claus von Bülow, who was tried but acquitted for the murder of his wife, Irons says: “I thought it might have been a bit taste­less. The man it was about was still alive and it was like digging up his family history.

But Glenn said: ‘If you don’t do it, someone else will,’ so I eventually said yes.” But even during the making of the movie he had reservations. “I still felt uneasy and thought it would go straight to TV. The first edit was a disaster but they fixed it and I got a call from Cannes saying: ‘We’re going to run for the Oscars with this.’”

He still doesn’t think it was his best work. “Dead Ringers the year before was ‘the’ performance, in a way I felt the Academy had been voting for that. I don’t care what the Oscar was for, though, as long as they give it to you!” he jokes.

Irons, who was at the Tenth Planet Brief Encounters acting masterclass at Covent Garden’s Actors’ Centre says he will put his name to turkeys if the price is right.

“I don’t regret anything. The terrible ones I always did for the money, like Dungeons And Dragons – Christ, that was dreadful. The more commercial roles, like Die Hard and The Lion King, aren’t any easier. It’s dangerous to think, ‘I can do this sitting on my bottom’, but I felt I was a bit boring in The Man In The Iron Mask (1998) so I stopped for two years.

“I get spoilt filming. I had 20 years of lead roles, then 10 years of guest roles which aren’t as satisfactory but you get paid a lot so you don’t have to do it often!”


 

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