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Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Henry Winkler and Don Johnson to Lead Simon Curtis Comedy ‘Encore’
Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn,” “Downton Abbey: A New Era”) has lined up a quartet of stars for upcoming comedy “Encore” from “Twilight” banner Temple Hill Entertainment.
The film — announced by Protagonist Pictures, which is launching worldwide sales ahead of Cannes — will reunite eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Closewith Oscar winner Jeremy Irons 34 years after their critically acclaimed hit “Reversal of Fortune.” Henry Winkler and Don Johnson round out the ensemble cast.
Written by Academy Award nominee Robert Nelson Jacobs (“Chocolat”), “Encore” follows a group of retired actors as they attempt to reignite their passion for life. Former Broadway icons Marie (Close) and Nigel (Irons) are new residents of a retirement home, where they discover a community of forgotten talents. Motivated to revive Nigel’s passion for theater and embrace this new chapter in their life, Marie decides to stage a production with the residents, pulling everyone out of their past and into their present. This production will be their encore.
“I loved Robert’s touching and hilarious script from the moment I read it and it has been thrilling to see some of the greatest actors in the world respond in the same way,” Curtis said. “I look forward to continuing to build a dream cast so audiences can imagine a group of their favorite actors living out their golden years under the same roof.”
Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner will produce for Temple Hill Entertainment (“Twilight” saga, “The Maze Runner” trilogy). Ryan Cunningham serves as co-producer. Protagonist Pictures is handling international rights, while UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance will be handling U.S. sales.
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring Robert’s wonderful screenplay, ‘Encore,’ to life under the artful direction of Simon Curtis, who has done a masterful job of assembling a group of talent that will be a joy to watch on screen together,” said Temple Hill co-founder Godfrey. “’Encore’ celebrates the idea that every day should be approached as the first day of the rest of your life, and it does so with immense heart and hilarity.”
Added Protagonist CEO Dave Bishop: “Full of emotion and laughter and anchored by a fantastic cast, ‘Encore’ is exactly the type of feel-good comedy audiences are craving — the perfect film at the perfect time to present to our buyers at Cannes. With Simon’s undeniable creative force behind the camera, and the extraordinary track record of our friends at Temple Hill, I cannot think of a better team of filmmakers to partner with on this project.”
Close is repped by CAA, MGMT Entertainment and Loeb & Loeb. Irons is repped by CAA. Winkler is repped by CAA and Management 360. Johnson is repped by CAA and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel.
Jeremy Irons was at the 92nd Street Y, in New York City, on Thursday 12 April 2018, to read T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’.
[Scroll down for photos]
Text via 92Y.org – “Seventy-five years after the publication of “Four Quartets” — and nearly seventy years since T. S. Eliot himself read from the poem in his Poetry Center debut — Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons returns to 92Y’s stage to present the masterwork in its entirety. This special event coincides with the awarding of the inaugural Four Quartets Prize, presented by the T. S. Eliot Foundation in association with the Poetry Society of America, as well as the CD release of Irons reading all of Eliot’s poems.”
Guests in attendance included Sinead Cusack, Glenn Close, Laurence Fishburne, Melissa Errico, Griffin Dunne, Tyne Daly, producer Ed Pressman and his wife Annie, actor Josh Hamilton and his wife playwright Lily Thorne, and Alice Quinn – Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America.
Before he read the ‘Four Quartets’, Jeremy offered some background information on T.S. Eliot and on the themes and locations mentioned in the poems. He also offered some words of wisdom when it comes to listening to poetry and also reading poetry.
Jeremy said he often tells audiences before he reads the poems: “Don’t get worried about the specifics…about the little moments…about the classical allegories or analogies or whatever that he [the poet] pops in. That meant something to him, but if it doesn’t mean anything to you, it isn’t important. Just listen, let it wash over you. Don’t be too specific or pedantic in the way you listen. And maybe something will be transmitted over and above the poem.”
Jeremy mentioned that T.S. Eliot wrote: “A recording of a poem read by its author is no more definitive an interpretation than a recording of a symphony conducted by the composer. A poem, if it’s of any depth and complexity, will have meanings in it concealed from the author. And should be capable of being read in many ways and with a variety of emotional emphases. A good poem, indeed, is one which even the most inexpert reading cannot wholly ruin and which even the most accomplished reading cannot exhaust. Another reader reciting the poem needn’t feel bound to reproduce these rhythms. If he studied the author’s version, he can assure himself he’s departing from it deliberately and not from ignorance.”
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On Friday 13 April 2018, at The National Arts Club at Gramercy Park in New York City, Jeremy was on hand to present the inaugural Four Quartets Prize to poet Danez Smith. Read more about that event from LitHub.
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Photo by jeremyirons.net
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan – Jeremy Irons with Danez Smith
A freewheeling conversation with a refreshingly honest industry vet, who wishes more people were talking about The Man Who Knew Infinity.
by Jordan Hoffman
December 23, 2016
Awards season is in mid-stride, loping toward our eventual exhaustion with the same six movies. But one man with a mild, mellifluous voice says “not so fast.” Jeremy Irons (whose shelf already holds one Oscar, one Tony, two Golden Globes, three Emmys, and a nomination from the Central Ohio Film Critics Association) feels a sense of urgency about a film released earlier this year, The Man Who Knew Infinity—and if it takes tongues-wagging about a possible best-supporting nod for himself to get people to notice this lower-budget film, then that’s what it’s going to take.
The Man Who Knew Infinity stars Dev Patel as Srinivasa Ramanujan, a largely self-taught mathematical genius who emerged from India in the early 20th century. He eventually made his way to England’s Cambridge University by sending his theorems to professor G.H. Hardy (played by Irons), who originally thought they were a prank. The film is a celebration of learning, of friendship, of cultural exchange, and concludes with a title card explaining how Ramanujan’s “lost notebook” is still being used to study black holes—a concept that didn’t even exist when Ramanujan was still alive.
Vanity Fair was scheduled to speak to Mr. Irons for 20 or 30 minutes, but we ended up chatting for an hour. His voice is just so rich and lovely that you don’t want to hang up.
Vanity Fair: You are a man with many projects, but I appreciate pumping the brakes to say, “Wait, I made a film worth reflecting on.” Do you feel an obligation to do this sometimes?
Jeremy Irons: I do, and especially with this film. It has a great effect on people who see it. I find it a very interesting story, very emotionally told. I’m always saddened because of the economics of the business. I have just been publicizing Assassin’s Creed, which has a great budget to make it and a great budget to sell it. So it’s going to be seen by millions, if not billions. These smaller films, it’s very hard to make them now. I feel justified in giving up time and talking about it again.
Irons, left, on set with director Matthew Brown.
Courtesy of IFC Films.
Do you have a relationship with mathematics?
I started it with this film. I mean, we all had a relationship at school, but I was pathetic. I wanted to be a veterinarian, and if I had a scientific mind I would have been one.
I read G.H. Hardy’s Mathematician’s Apology, which is a slim volume. It’s some of his letters, but also some of his thoughts about pure mathematics. And when I read it I thought, “Aha!” What it is for him, it’s like what poetry is for me, like space exploration, like painting! He discusses how all these equations and theories are out there, waiting to be discovered!
An artist can comprehend this and get inside the head of this man that, one has to say, was probably fairly high on the Asperger’s list. His social skills were appalling. He found it very difficult to look into someone’s eyes, even his own. It is said that if he traveled, to do a lecture, he would hang towels over the mirrors of the hotel room. But he’d been a brilliant student since he was seven. Kids who are geniuses often have social inadequacies. Their minds work differently.
Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t hung up on race or class, and when he met Ramanujan, he just recognized him for his mathematical mind.
The heart of the story is how that admiration and wonder at Ramanujan’s intellect crept into his emotions. When the boy got ill, he was surprised how he felt about another human being, the grief he felt when he went back to India. Hardy writes, “It was the only romantic episode of my life.”
The film makes you think that maybe there are more geniuses out there, and we maybe aren’t developing their minds.
It’s one of the problems of tick-box education. There isn’t a lot of money in it. Geniuses come from all parts of society, some rich, some poor. I wish we had an education system that smelled out those people.
Did you ever have a great mentor?
I don’t think he would have realized it, but Harold Pinter. One time we were having a conversation at lunch, early on in my career. I’d been doing a couple of plays and a film he had written [Betrayal], and I said, “I think I’m going to choose really carefully the work I do in my career, and not chase the money. Just do interesting projects.”
And he gave me a look that said, “Join the club. Go for excellence.” And I’ve retained that look.
You’ve worked in some amazing locations. What’s been the most striking?
Landing in Cartagena [for The Mission] when I was 36 or so, knowing I was going to work with indigenous Indians and the great film star Robert De Niro, and taking my shoes off on the plane. I knew that the Indians weren’t going to be wearing shoes and since I was going to be playing their friend—a Jesuit priest—I took my shoes off and I didn’t put them back on again for five months.
I have a big bit of Boy Scout in me. There was a scene where my character climbed up the Iguazu Falls. [Director Roland Joffé wanted] to do it with stunts, insurance, and all of that. I said, “Where is our producer?,” knowing that David Puttnam had flown to London the day before. I said, “There we are, he won’t know.” So I climbed up the extraordinary waterfall, of course supported by climbers well out of sight. I was very proud of that.
Jesuits are hot in Hollywood right now! Have you seen Silence?
I have not seen Silence yet, but I’ve read a bit about it. But the Jesuits—the thorn in the side of the Pope, is how they are described. The Jesuits are extraordinary people.
My mentor on The Mission was the late Daniel Berrigan. He described his job as “inflating a leaky balloon with faith.” I was the leaky balloon. If I had a difficult scene coming up, I would fast the day before. It really clears the mind.
And I would have a direct communication with God. I would talk to him just like I’m talking with you. I remember before one scene I said to him, “You’ve got to help me, because if I fuck up it will reflect very badly on you!”
Clearly you do a lot of research, but that isn’t always available for some films.
You talk to people. When I played Claus von Bulow [in 1990’s Reversal of Fortune], I talked to experts, read round it, tried to get to the truth of it. I mean, I don’t think I’m particularly Aspergic, but I think all men are, actually, all men have a level of that over women. My wife is always complaining. She says, “When you go to work the rest of the world could disappear as far as you are concerned.” She’s referring to the fact that I don’t call home every day.
You think men are more into that level of research as actors than women are?
No I don’t think as actors, I think men as a breed, as a sex, tend to have the ability to focus in on their work. I mean, after all, traditionally, we’d leave the house at 7 in the morning and get back at 5 or 6 doing something completely different from the family. Whereas women, you know, if they go to work they are forever on the phone to their children, they’re forever on the phone to work out what they are going to eat. They are able to multitask in a way that men can’t. So I think we may be very low on the level, but we’re there.
So you are an actor who prepares, but some don’t do anything. They show up, say their lines, and leave. Does this annoy you?
Not at all. I judge people by results. If they get there, that’s great. The only actors who get up my nose are the ones who don’t realize how high the bar is, how good it would be possible to make a particular scene. And there are many who don’t, and I just want to kick them up the bum and say, “Go off and do something else.”
So how do these people end up sharing a scene with you?
Oh, maybe they look right, maybe the person that casting wanted wasn’t available. Maybe they have a notoriety which is helpful to the film. It doesn’t often happen, but sometimes it’s someone with a great name but not a lot of experience.
There was a stretch in the 1990s where if a movie featured frank depictions of unorthodox sexuality, the role would go to you. Did you ever ask yourself why?
I don’t know. I don’t know. Damage? [Playwright] Josephine [Hart] wanted me to do it. Lolita? [Director] Adrian [Lyne] said he wouldn’t make it without me. David Cronenberg? I guess he thought I could do the twins [1991’s Dead Ringers], and then we got on so well we went on to do the Chinese film [1993’s M. Butterfly] with John Lone.
I think the portrayal of the sexual life was as important as any other life. Our sexual lives are surely 70 percent of what makes us what we are. I remember [making Damage], Louis Malle saying, “How are we going to do this?,” and I said, “We have to do it as accurately as we can as Josephine wrote it.” So . . . I’ll do anything.
I just finished a comedy called An Actor Prepares, where I have to walk out of a shower stark naked and play a scene with my son (Jack Huston) waving my family jewels around. They said, “How will we do that?,” and I said, “We’re gonna do it, that’s the scene!” It’s about a man who doesn’t give a monkey about anything. “For Christ’s sake, I’ll just be naked.”
I’m going to name someone you’ve worked with, and you are going to tell me the first thing that pops in your head that I don’t know about them. First, since we mentioned him already: David Cronenberg [director of Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly].
He looks forward to the end of the day when he drives home from the studio in a very tasty sports car, a Morgan or a Ferrari, often with me, and we have a hell of a drive back home, and we love that.
Toby Jones [co-star in The Man Who Knew Infinity].
Ahhhh, Toby. Toby is like me—he’s a wonderful actor, but spends the last half hour before the shoot panicking that he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be saying. I’m glad to work with another actor like that because I’m always in a froth. Then the camera turns on and, of course, it’s magical.
Bernardo Bertolucci [director of Stealing Beauty].
Bernardo, the master of the developing shot. We would rehearse them for half a day and then perform them with the cameraman, like a ballet. I was just talking to his wife the other night. I’m not sure he’ll make another film.
Meryl Streep [co-star in The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The House of the Spirits]
She explained to me that the people driving you to work and being kind to you and making sure you have a nice hotel . . . that’s all designed so when the camera turns, you will be A-plus. And you should not be sidelined into thinking it has anything to do with your importance as a person.
Sir Laurence Olivier [co-star in Brideshead Revisited].
He never gave me any advice. Blokes are funny like that. But I remember sitting by the bed when we’re waiting for him to die, and for him to cross himself to show that he’s still a Catholic, which was a very important scene. I remember him lying there, and looking at me to see what I was going to be doing. And I saw the look in his eyes. And I thought, “Yep! It NEVER leaves you! You may be a knight. You may have run the National Theater. You may be our greatest living actor. But inside . . .you are still a lion! And you are looking to make sure this young buck is not going to do anything that will steal the scene from you!!”
Speaking of young bucks: Alden Ehrenreich, whom you worked with in Beautiful Creatures, is on the up right now.
I know, he’s in the Howard Hughes movie!
He’s also going to be young Han Solo.
Well, well, well. I think that’s fantastic. I was really very impressed with Alden. I wasn’t very impressed with the movie, but impressed with Alden. An easy talent. He is primed to have an interesting career. God bless him.
Tom Hiddleston [co-star in High-Rise and The Hollow Crown].
I think he has a fine career ahead of him. A tremendously nice guy with a lot physically going for him. The longer he lives life, the deeper he’ll become as an actor. He’s had quite an easy life ’til now, and as life hits him with its stones and arrows, he’ll deepen as an actor.
Why do you say he’s had an easy life?
Well . . . he went to a great school, and success hit him quite young.
How do you do a scene with him? Don’t you just fall into his eyes?
The thing about working with good actors that the camera likes is that it’s very easy. Working with bad actors is difficult, to stay in the belief system of the scene, when you see someone making wrong decisions. With Tom, it’s a joy.
Lastly, Glenn Close [co-star in Reversal of Fortune, House of the Spirits and the Tony Award–winning play The Real Thing].
Ohhhhhhh. Glenn is a pioneer, a real descendant of those brave people who got into boats and wagons and traveled across the country. A real American woman of the best sort. I love her. I love her toughness, but also her softness. My son just finished two films with her, actually, here in England, so I’ve seen a lot of her lately. And she gets no worse.
When I mentioned Beautiful Creatures, you said you weren’t too impressed with that movie. Actors never say that!
To my detriment, I am too honest about the movies I make. People have a lot of money invested, and you want to be helpful. And my opinions may not be valid. What doesn’t work for me may work for others. I don’t really seek out reviews, but I read them if I come across them. But more than reviews I feel the atmosphere. Assassin’s Creed, which I saw the other day, I think is a fantastic film.
I remember going on about Damage, how it wasn’t the film that I would have made. I love honesty. I am surrounded by people who say, “That was great,” but it wasn’t always great. It was all right.
Jeremy Irons will be in New York City on 4 June 2014 :
Wednesday, June 4, 2014 7:00-10:30 p.m. Stage 37 508 West 37th Street New York, NY 10018 West 37th Street and 10th Avenue
Glenn Close will be honored at the Sundance Institute Celebration benefit on June 4, 2014 in New York for her distinguished career in entertainment and continuing advocacy of, and participation in, independent films. The Sundance Institute Vanguard Leadership Award will be presented to her by her longtime friend Jeremy Irons, with whom she has worked in film and on stage, in projects including The Real Thing, Reversal of Fortune and House of the Spirits.
In the 1995 movie “Die Hard: With a Vengeance,” Jeremy Irons was pure evil as an urbane and elegant bad guy.
As Simon Gruber, he terrorized pre-9/11 New York City, practically in the shadow of the still-intact World Trade Center towers.
Scary stuff . . . but it’s nothing compared to Jeremy Irons’ latest film.
In the new documentary “Trashed,” Irons shows us the terrifying possibility of a future world buried in its own garbage.
“After doing the documentary, how conscious are you, when you walk down the street, of trash?” asked Smith.
“Well, I mean, this part of New York is wonderful, there’s no trash in sight,” Irons said. “And I think it’s a case of out of sight, out of mind.”
“We throw it away and it’s gone?”
“That’s right. It’s clean, it’s lovely, it’s not something we have to worry about. But where does it go?”
Where, indeed? In Indonesia, garbage goes in the nearest river, and eventually out to sea. Worldwide, according to the film, Americans could recycle 90 percent of the waste we generate, but right now we only recycle a third of that — and some of our trash eventually finds its way back into us — such as plastics leeching into our food supply.
It’s weird to see an Oscar-winning actor rooting through trash cans in New York City’s nicest neighborhood, but for Irons, garbage has become, well, personal.
He pulled out one object: “Now this is recyclable, this is great, but it’s half full, so it’s wasted food. Coconut water: Fantastic for you, 100% pure, and it’s thrown away half-full. We waste a huge amount of the food we buy.”
“You have no hesitation to just pick through the trash, Jeremy?” Smith asked.
“No, it’s rubbish. That’s all it is. It’s just dirt. A bit of dirt before you die is good.”
“Celebrities get asked to be involved in a lot of different causes; what was it about trash that made you say, ‘I have to do something’?” asked Smith.
“I wanted to make a documentary about something which I thought was important and which was curable,” he said. “It’s not rocket science. It takes a little effort, it takes a little thought. It takes a little education. I think most people want to do what is right. But they need a bit of organization.
“We make everybody wear seatbelts now. That was a bore, wasn’t it? But we do it, and we don’t think about it anymore. Very simple to do the same with how we deal with our garbage.”
It might not be easy to picture Jeremy Irons as a garbage activist: From his breakout role in 1981’s “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” he has been in more than 40 movies, at least as many plays, and has won just about every acting award there is.
“I’ve been very lucky,” he said.
“You have a slew of awards that would say you got some talent,” Smith suggested.
“Yeah, if awards mean that. Yeah. Yeah.”
“You don’t think they mean much?”
“I do. I do. And I really don’t want to denigrate them. I think awards are fantastic. I don’t let them go to my head. I always, when I start a new piece of work, I still feel like a plumber, but I don’t know how to do it. I just sort of feel out of my depths — I’m not very good at plumbing!”
Well, he’s good at something. Born in England in 1948, Jeremy John Irons trained as a stage actor before breaking into film.
He’s been married to actress Sinead Cusack since 1978, with whom he has two sons. But on-screen he hasn’t always been such a devoted husband.
In 1990’s “Reversal of Fortune,” Irons was cast as socialite Claus von Bulow, accused of trying to kill his rich wife by giving her an overdose of insulin.
“Did you love getting in Claus von Bulow’s head?” Smith asked.
“I was slightly embarrassed,” Irons said, “and in fact fought off playing him for a while, because he was alive and I thought there was something tasteless about pretending to be someone who was still alive. And so I fought against it. Finally it was Glenn Close who persuaded me. She said, ‘If you don’t play him someone else will play him. You know, come on. Have a crack at it. It’s interesting.'”
Glenn Close was right: the performance earned him the Oscar for Best Actor.
Irons’ Claus von Bulow is a saint compared with his current role in the Showtime series, “The Borgias.” Irons is Pope Alexander VI, a man of many passions.
Off-screen, you might say Irons has become the unofficial pope of recycling — and, in what may be his most important role yet, an elegant and refined voice of caution.
Are we doomed?, Smith asked “I don’t believe we’re doomed because I believe that human nature is extraordinary,” Irons said. ” I think we will be brought to our senses eventually. I think things may have to get worse. I think, I hope we will be brought to our senses. We’re on a highway to a very expensive and unhealthy future if we do nothing.”
Here’s how the article appears in Parade Magazine in newspapers: (Click for a much larger high-res image…)
If there’s a cad or a creep to be played, Jeremy Irons’s antennae shoot up. “Characters who live on the outer edge of acceptable behavior have always been to my taste,” says the Oscar winner, now starring as the power-mad patriarch of Showtime’s series The Borgias (Sundays, 10 p.m. ET/PT). Irons, 62, chats with Steve Daly about his affinity for sinners.
Why are scandalous families like the Borgias so fascinating?
Whether it be in The Borgias or Shakespeare or The Godfather, we love watching people doing what we don’t dare do. Murder and mayhem, from the safe position of our armchairs, can be delightful.
What will audiences make of Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492 but kept multiple mistresses?
He wouldn’t see that as hypocritical. He wasn’t a god—he was a man, and man was born a sinner. He’s rather endearing, in a strange way. He’s as pathetic as all men are. They want everything, don’t they?
Will people be surprised at the brutal Vatican politics?
The Vatican at that time was nothing like it is now. In a way, it was a medieval West Wing—the center of power in the known world.
Sundays have changed since Borgia days. What do they mean for you?
I’m a bit sorry we have all the shops open. But we all have to be encouraged to buy, buy, buy, to keep society going, so I suppose one has to accept that. For me, it’s a day I can have a lie-in and a relaxed brunch. I think we need a down day. Otherwise we’d just go bananas.
Your 25-year-old son, Max, is co-starring in Red Riding Hood. What’s it been like watching him deal with the publicity?
Well, it fills me with concern. I’m very happy he’s doing what he loves. But my nightmare as a young actor was to be taken up too quickly. A plant needs to get its roots into the soil before it can withstand the wind and the ice and the cold. Nowadays, the business has a huge appetite for youth and tends, when it’s tired of it, to spit it out. But I think he’s got his head screwed on quite straight.
You’ve played some very dark roles. Which gave you the most pause before saying yes?
I think Reversal of Fortune, because the protagonists [Claus and Sunny von Bülow] were still alive—or partly alive, anyway. But Glenn Close persuaded me that if I didn’t do it, someone else would. And I knew Lolita would cause fireworks. I said to my agent, “You’d better get me a wage that will keep me the next three years, because I don’t think I’ll work much after this.” That was indeed what happened.
You’re skilled at sailing the ocean and riding horses and motorcycles fast—not the safest activities. Are you a daredevil?
Living on the edge, for me, has always been one of life’s great pleasures. It’s not really the speed; it’s the fact that you have to do it well in order to survive.
Ever pushed it too far?
Oh, I have. At any time, you can tumble, but that adds to the frisson. It reminds you there is an edge. And I think we need constant reminders: The edge is there. Don’t fall over it.
Acclaimed actor Jeremy Irons talks about the Irish castle he’s renovated. Plus, Irons gets passionate about the controversial ban on smoking in New York City.
On the 15th century castle in Ireland he owns and has renovated.
“Renovating scared the wits off me. I didn’t know what it was going to cost or how long it would take, or that I’d manage to do it. People were sort of surprised, ‘cause they think I’m an extremely wealthy actor. They thought, ‘You’ll get architects in, you’ll get builders, and they’ll do it.’ But I didn’t want to do it that way. I wanted to be as hands-on as I could.
“It was open to the sky, but structurally sound. The walls had stood for 500 years, despite people’s attempts to pull them down for the stone they contained. They’re 100 feet tall, 9 feet thick at the bottom and 4 feet thick at the top. All the fine carving around the windows had either been eroded or stolen. No heating, no plumbing, no electricity.
“When we were going flat-out on it, I had 40 guys working there every day. I was the main contractor, so my job was to make sure that those guys, who were getting paid by the hour, were fully occupied, that they had all the equipment and materials they needed.
“I didn’t put a lift [elevator] in. The purist inside me said, ‘You’ve got to earn that height. If you want to get up there, you’ve got to walk.’ I’m sort of glad about that, even though when I’m 80 I may be cursing that decision.”
On the unusual color the castle is painted.
“It’s a sort of orange terra cotta—the color of newly-born seaweed. It’s a color that’s found a lot around the castle, and also in strands of the [local] rock that has copper in it. I think it fits [the setting] quite well, but it did surprise everybody when we first took the scaffolding down. There was a sort of sharp intake of breath from those in the neighborhood. I once asked my direct neighbor, who’s a farmer, ‘What color would you have done it?’ He said, ‘I suppose grey.’ Because of course it had been grey for the last 400 years. However, he said, ‘It’s yours! You can paint it whatever color you like.’ And now they rather like it. The fishermen and the ferrymen use it as a landmark. And I have to say it looks stunning, especially in low morning or evening light.
On the public-area no-smoking regulations he hates.
“I think they’re appalling. It’s what I call bullying a minority. Because if you say, ‘I really think I should have the right to smoke in the street or in the park or at the beach,’ people will say, ‘You shouldn’t be smoking at all. It’s bad for you.’ Well, I think we can choose what’s bad for us. I mean, there are many other things in life that are bad for us. Being surrounded by boring people is very bad for us—it attacks the heart. And being surrounded by mass consumerism, as one is in most urban areas, is bad for you, making you believe that if you buy something, it’ll make you happy. But all those things people are allowed to get away with.”
In June 2009, Jeremy Irons was in Czechoslovakia to attend the Art Film Ffest in Trencianske Teplice and to accept the Actor’s Mission Award.
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Here’s an article from iDNEZ.cz (awkwardly translated from Czech by Google): Source
July 26, 2009 8:12
“People prefer their dark side hidden,” says British actor Jeremy Irons. But apparently his work has always enjoyed the most. In late June he came to Slovakia and the Art Film Fest in Trenčianske Teplice took the actor prize mission.
Charismatic British actor Jeremy Irons made his debut in 1980 in the film Russian ballet dancer Nijinsky. The film combines, in which he starred with Robert De Niro, his six years later earned a Golden Globe nomination. Yet appeared last year in continuation of the Pink Panther.
In London the Duke of Yorks Theatre, you played the game of Christopher Hampton and passion based on the novel written by Sándor Márai.Did you know that Marai was born in Slovakia?
But died in America. You probably would not return before you will be democracy, right? It’s a beautiful book. I read it several years before I performed in that game. The character should be played by older players, but has so many monologues, that they would probably have problems.
Marai wrote this novel, that every great passion is hopeless, otherwise it was just a barter lukewarm interest. Some truth to it will be. People looking for an impossible dream. It is very hard to maintain passion when it is permitted.
Often you receive characters deceivers, but also gay.
It’s more coincidence. As an actor, doing characters that we offer.
.Have performed even mysterious, to the horror genre.Do you own the dark side?
We all have sites that are trying to hide from others. Now you as an actor but I always attract, positive characters interest me. Still, I believe that movies, where I worked, the results are positive. I try to live fully, to explore the lives of most.
When you’re in the movie Mission climbed a waterfall, it looked rather dangerous.It was so in reality?
I think it was, even though the corner waiting for rock climbers, who would catch me when I slipped. As an actor and director, I love looking for a job that attracts me and tested.
The biopic of American painter Georgia O’Keeffe play her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz.He allegedly said that a photograph is not art and that artists can be a shoemaker. It is not, as even the image is automatically art. Umělecké dílo musí komunikovat. Artwork must communicate. They are painters and artists. Indeed, most collectors of contemporary art is more about investing.
And the film is still business.
Sure. I do not know if I ever make a movie that is a work of art. Can be an art book, or music? I’m not sure.
You play the harmonica and the violin, what music means to you? I think it has magical powers. I recently saw Leonard Cohen. Created an atmosphere at the concert, which hardly reach any other way. Music will touch you, reminding you to some long-forgotten feeling.
How do you work with your voice?
Not realize it, it’s just a sound, which I try to speak. If you want to reproduce the feeling of acting, you have to concentrate on ideas, not to vote. Good players are trying to get into the heads of Mozart. Bad players play only the notes.
Often you occupy the roles of people from high society.
Yet I am not an aristocrat, I am middle class like you, I was tall and good to me sits dress. That is all.
How did you get to work on the film Power of the Powerless, which tells the story of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia? Often they want me to record comments on the various documents. I worked briefly in Prague, I have several Czech friends who had emigrated after 1968, but with Czech dissidents was. He called me from a purely professional reasons and I took it like that. I think this movie is well done and that it seeks to address the issue honestly.
British perceptions of Central Europe still a bit Kafkaesque? I like that I do not see Europe, but the tourism industry is to many Eastern European countries similarly open. Behind the Iron Curtain, we saw only a black space where there is poverty and where they do not travel. When I was filming in Romania, I saw the beautiful buildings that remained there from the 19th století. century. Although today most of them devastated, I believe that there once life returns.
I know about you that we support a free Tibet … It seems that nobody wants Tibet to do anything. All Western countries want to trade with China. And the Chinese do the same thing, what did the Russians – they make about their country’s security buffers.
You have also donated money to the charity that promotes yoga in prison.Why?
It’s simple. . Everywhere in the world, an increasing number of people who are leaving the prison worse than when they went into it. In prison he spends a lot of time with yourself, yoga and meditation can help them physically and mentally stronger, overcome anger. But in many prisons, he thinks that yoga is the last thing we need to prisoners. Similarly, some governments believe that art is the last thing you need
myslet. think.
Practicing yoga and yourself?
No, but I have meditated for many years.
What do you mean admiration by women?Even at a festival in Teplice Trenčianske you gave a lot of signatures. This signing was a little bored, but I’m flattered. I think people are not interested either way I do, but rather my characters, which are to be aligned. If I went somewhere and nobody would have cared about me, it would mean that I’m doing my job well.
Sometimes call the former partners or film, how to? I do not do it often, but when I was in New York, I met with Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. When I was last in Italy, we have seen with Ornela Mutti, France is trying to find Fanny Ardant and Juliette Binoche.
They’re just a professional relationship? No, it is often the friendship.
I like that I do not see Europe, but the tourism industry is to many Eastern European countries similarly open. Behind the Iron Curtain, we saw only a black space where there is poverty and where they do not travel. When I was filming in Romania, I saw the beautiful buildings that remained there from the 19th století. century. Although today most of them devastated, I believe that there once life returns.
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