Interview with Jeremy Irons
by Giulia Dobre
(Jeremy Irons holds some talks around an afternoon tea with Giulia Dobre, in London...)
Iron indefinitely fascinates. His chilly body, his accent and his voice that tumefiates your mind, his lubrical, ludical and morphometrical characters….Between now and the infinite, this is the man Jeremy. Provoquing, choquing, unique. At the bar of the Sloane Square Hotel, at the limits of Chelsea
I AM A PIPE
Giulia Dobre: How would you position yourself in this day and age, in this year? Have you evolved? Into what, into whom?
Jeremy Irons: I feel myself in an evolution, but this has nothing to do with dates. The dates, the new century, it coincides almost with my own half century. But I think that is probably my age, rather than the date, which makes me feel in an evolution...I think I have learnt with the age to be more laid back than I was ten years ago. But I am still looking for risk, I am looking for things that interest me. Because I get bored very easily, I like new things which might worry me that I cannot do. I like to be challenged. I like to feel the risk.
Giulia Dobre: What if you lose?Can you take it?
Jeremy Irons: Oh, yes. If I lose, that's all for the best. If I win, even more so. I just risk. I think that one of the great joys of risking is that you could lose, or you could win. I find more joy in doing that than in doing things I know I can do, which are safe, which I might get bored with.
Giulia Dobre: So what would be the essential tool for your job?
Jeremy Irons: Imagination. And a fit instrument, which in my case is the body. For a musician it may be a piano. But I have to use all the things which so far computers aren't able to do...Which is to imagine, which is to communicate on deep levels with audiences.
Giulia Dobre: Your characters are always so unusual...How have they shaped you? Have they left any trace in you, in your actual persona?
Jeremy Irons: I think when you play a character which is different from you, and many of the characters I've played are very different from me, cause I'm quite a normal person, is very much like you're going on a holiday, in a different place, and I'm then a different person.You explore a side of yourself you never use in your life. When you come back to your normal life, you see your life differently. When you come home from your holiday, you've changed a bit. And I suppose I probably changed a little bit because of my work. May be I get to know myself better...
Giulia Dobre: Have you chosen your parts according to a certain pattern or image you needed to attain?
Jeremy Irons: No, I just try to do things that I haven't done before...As I've mentioned earlier I am easily bored. So I like to play characters that aren't like the ones I played before, so a certain evolution occurs because of that. I like to play characters who are very different to me because I like to get excited from exploring a person who's new to me. Alongside that i have to remember that an audience has an expectation, so I try to upset that expectation by giving something which they haven't expected, so they are surprised...Delighted...I've always been attracted to characters who drew at the very extreme, who live on the edge of normal experience. But alongside that I ma mixing films which will allow me to play to a wider audience. I like change. I like variety...
Giulia Dobre: Your characters are usually living on the edge and are also driven by a sexuality on the edge...Do you think sexuality, love are a central compound of your work, of the world going on?
Jeremy Irons: I think love is... Certainly...I think many people are driven by their sexuality. I don't know if my characters are raw-models...
Giulia Dobre: The choices they make are coming from the choices they had with their sexuality...So their life unfolds according to these choices...
Jeremy Irons: I think our sexuality is a very big part of ourselves. I suppose it's inevitable, that is a part of what makes up a character...I think our desire to love and to be loved is one of our biggest desires. We are taught to rechanel that in our ambitions towards success...But I think it has nothing to do with me...
Giulia Dobre: Is this what pushes life ahead?
Jeremy Irons: No. I think the dawn of a new day is what pushes life ahead...You know, that happens, whatever you do. A new day dawn means that you need to get going on with something else.
Giulia Dobre: Are you aware when you play that you are who you are, or do you completely lose yourself in a part?How do you enter a character?
Jeremy Irons: You enter a character by learning what he does, what he does not, what he likes, what he likes not, what he wants, where he lives, all the things which make up us. You make that up for the character and you live that...Once I am out of a role, than I forget about it all...I only retain the reasons for which I have accepted that character, and the story that character requires to be known. What's the character's function in the story.
Giulia Dobre: Are you building yourself a story in your own reality that matches the character's story, in order for you to get in that character better?Is there anything there like a magician trick?
Jeremy Irons: No... There is not trick, this is what children do all the time, they have a great facility of doing it. If you concentrate on the perceptions of a child, it's perfect. Most people grow out of it, but the's no use in doing that. They leave childish things behind. But to play-and to act, are the same thing, the same understanding. That's what children do. They imagine, they create brand new worlds. That's all...Well, that's not all, but that' s one of the main things to do. Then they have to establish a bridge tot their audience, so the audience could know what are their feelings, their story. They have to play with their bodies, their eyes, their voices, to communicate what they are feeling. It's like when you play a piece of music. Playing means having all the channels of communication open. That's what I am, I am a conduct, I am a telephone wire...
Giulia Dobre: What would the job of a Director be in all that?
Jeremy Irons: The Director is like a chef in a restaurant, really. He goes to the market, he buys the food, he buys the raw material, the Designer, the crew, he sets it all up. He already has a menu: a script. He puts the ingredients together, and he lets them work on each other. He would then add a bit of heat, or of spice. Finally he tights them all together with a bit of presumption to the audience: would they like that, would they be interested? But if the tomatoes are very good, or the onions, they work very well together. The flavors that you get will be a surprise to the Director, because he just let them work together in the pot. In a way, that's a what a Director does in a film. He chooses all the people, has a script, and during that, he will have to make choices, to guide the actors a bit, and at the end of the show he should be almost taken over by what he has achieved. You can't have a good meal, without a good cook, unless you are very lucky...
Giulia Dobre: How much do you let a Director interfere with your work?
Jeremy Irons: Completely, he can do what he likes, I am employed by him! He is my boss. I work with him. If he;s a good director, he'll cope with the ego, with everything. Hopefully, everyone puts the ideas all together: the crew, the actors, and finally he will cut it through all that. It's a collaboration, for the best. Good ideas are always coming in the process...Working with each other...
Giulia Dobre: What would you call a very good actor?
Jeremy Irons: Someone who's very free, who's very open. A lot of confidence is required. And then, not too much confidence, so he peaks up on his gifts...Somebody who is an interesting person, has an interesting life. Who is ready to try, ready to risk anything. And who listens. Listening is one of the most important...To listen to what is spoken to you. Most people think that acting is about talking. I'd say it's about thinking...Acting with a good actor is very easy. It makes all the difference....
Giulia Dobre: What are the movies/the authors you prefer?
Jeremy Irons: I am very open. Everything that touches me. A film should give me the feeling of having travelled, it should dislocate me completely from the present, I should get out, for instance, from a cinema in New York and feel like totally being in Nepal
Giulia Dobre: What would you advise a young actor to do, and not to do? An artist in general?
Jeremy Irons: To have faith. To stay open. To be curious, to want to know more of the world, and of himself. To imagine continuously, to never rest, to keep coming on the attack over and over, to never declare bancrupcy....To improve himself all the time, to work relentlessly with his own limitations and push them...To be free...It is an amazingly beautiful profession!
Giulia Dobre: What was your relationship with Romania
Jeremy Irons: Well, I have been there for a bit more than three months. At the beginning, I thought I'll have nothing to do there. But then, via a Romanian new friend, a young woman with a very special personality,I came to get out to town, and in the countryside. As I am very Irish in my heart, I am very attached to the ground and its values, and what really touched me it was to see so many similarities with Ireland and its people...I saw peasants laboring their land, and the strength and the beauty they have, I've seen amazing colors of the land and of the sky, above the Sea and above the fields...Through that special friend I came to know other Romanians, very interesting and different of each other, but mainly warm and very cultivated people. I could say I am pretty much inlove with that country, and I need to explore it more. I might go back with my bike, sometimes, in a near future, and travel freely from North to South...
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