Jeremy Irons's Real Name: Jeremy Irons

Quick answer: Jeremy Irons is known professionally and in reference works as Jeremy Irons. He was born on September 19, 1948, in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England. He is a British actor who won an Academy Award for Reversal of Fortune and a Tony Award for The Real Thing (Britannica).

Real name and early life

Britannica records him as Jeremy Irons, born September 19, 1948, in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England. The Library of Congress heading is "Irons, Jeremy, 1948-." Some Library of Congress citations to IMDb list a birth name, Jeremy John Irons; because that fuller form is documented there only through IMDb, this page uses the public name Jeremy Irons in the title and does not treat the middle name as independently confirmed. Britannica notes the sophistication and gravitas of his performances and traces his training and early stage work through the London production of Godspell (1973).

Career highlights

He appeared on Broadway in The Real Thing (1984), winning a Tony Award. After a screen debut in Nijinsky (1980), he won notice for The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), opposite Meryl Streep, and became widely popular through the television series Brideshead Revisited (1981), adapted from Evelyn Waugh. He later gave what Britannica calls "deliciously wicked turns" in Dead Ringers (1988) and in Reversal of Fortune (1990), as Claus von Bülow, a role that brought the Academy Award for best actor.

Subsequent films include Damage (1992), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), with Bruce Willis, and the 1997 adaptation of Lolita. In the animated The Lion King (1994), he voiced a villainous lion. Later supporting roles listed by Britannica include Being Julia (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Appaloosa (2008), Margin Call (2011), The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and Justice League (2017), with a different cut released in 2021 as Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Name notes for searchers

Jeremy Irons is the name used in Britannica and in the Library of Congress authorized heading. A middle name, John, appears in IMDb-based Library of Congress citations but is not used in the title here. Searchers looking for Jeremy Irons, the Brideshead Revisited actor, or the voice in The Lion King are usually aiming at the same person.