Jeremy Irons

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in 1986, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:31

Castaway today is both an actor and a star. At present he's appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford, while at the same time starring in a successful film called The Mission, sharing the billing with Robert De Niro. The part of Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited set him on the path to stardom. The film The French Lieutenant's Woman gave him an international reputation. He is Jeremy Irons. Jeremy, I should tell listeners that in fact uh we are sitting in your home at Stratford in a beautiful sort of late autumn afternoon, which accounts for the sort of wildlife noise we might hear throughout. I didn't want to think we've got crows in the studio. Correct. You were born in in in Cowes. What what kind of a background do you come from?

Jeremy Irons1:10

My father was a chartered accountant. He worked for Saunders Row down the Isle of Wight.

Jeremy Irons1:15

And, I suppose, a good, solid, middle class background. We lived, in fact, in Saint Helens.

Jeremy Irons1:19

and had sailing dinghies that we use and horses that we row.

Jeremy Irons1:24

I went away as my elder brother and elder sister did to boarding school at seven.

Jeremy Irons1:29

which I've always regretted slightly because it I think tends to fragment the family a bit.

Jeremy Irons1:34

But it was a very happy childhood. We stayed there till I was about thirteen and then we moved nearer London.

Presenter1:39

What about ambitions at the time? Did you want to be an actor from the very beginning?

Jeremy Irons1:42

No, I wanted to be a vet. Why? I was and I am very simplistic, and I

Jeremy Irons1:47

I wanted to continue the lifestyle I knew and liked, and I thought that if I was a vet

Jeremy Irons1:52

I could have maybe a city practice and a country practice.

Jeremy Irons1:56

and therefore get the best of both worlds, live in the country, work with animals, which I have always enjoyed being with. Unfortunately, when I got to school I failed badly all my science exams, and so this soon became an impossibility.

Presenter2:10

What about the the acting ambition though? I mean, when you were at Sherburne, for instance, I mean, did you take any part in the in the drama society there at all?

Jeremy Irons2:17

Yeah.

Presenter2:17

Was there any stimulus there?

Jeremy Irons2:17

We'll find this

Jeremy Irons2:18

There was, there was a great drama society, and I wanted to be asked.

Jeremy Irons2:22

Unfortunately, I have a natural modesty which I sometimes disguise well, but which

Jeremy Irons2:27

It stopped me from asking to be involved. I thought you can't go and ask to be in a play.

Jeremy Irons2:32

And it wasn't till my last year that they asked me to play Mr. Puff in the Critic by Sheridan.

Jeremy Irons2:38

And I was very pleased because it was a wonderful part. I mean, Olivier and Ian McKellen have both done it very nicely.

Jeremy Irons2:44

And I then realized when I said, Why haven't you asked me before? and they said, But you just put your name on the list there at the beginning of every year. And Muggins here I mean, this is why I failed my science exams, because I was as thick as two short planks. Muggins here didn't know about the list. So uh

Presenter2:57

Yeah.

Jeremy Irons2:58

I only did that one play. And when I left school I really had no idea where I wanted to go. I had begun to have an interest in theatrical history. I was reading a lot of biographies of actors from the time of Shakespeare up to the present day.

Jeremy Irons3:13

And I had a sort of romantic notion of a gipsy life and

Jeremy Irons3:16

Contrast in one's work.

Presenter3:19

Press this.

Jeremy Irons3:19

Definitely.

Presenter3:19

Ambition to your parents, your father?

Jeremy Irons3:20

I did, and because I'm a second son, my father was deeply relieved that there was something particular that I wanted to do he having tried to feed my elder brother into various professions, my elder brother having not really liked any of them.

Jeremy Irons3:34

Faced with the son who said, This is what I want to do, he looked a little abashed and said, I think probably you have to try it. I don't think it's a very secure profession.

Jeremy Irons3:43

But if you don't try it, A, you'll maybe always resent the fact I didn't support you, and B, you'll never know if you could have done any good.

Presenter3:49

Let's have a first choice of record, please.

Jeremy Irons3:52

While the first choice is upgrade.

Jeremy Irons3:54

Track Bob Dylan Cut

Jeremy Irons3:56

And it reminds me of the times when

Jeremy Irons3:59

On my way to becoming an actor I used to busk in Leicester Square to the cinema queues, and everybody was singing through their noses and trying to sound like this.

Speaker 44:11

Ain't it ain't no use in turning on your light, baby.

Speaker 44:16

I'm on the dark side of the road.

Speaker 44:20

But I wish there was something you would

Speaker 44:23

Do a say

Speaker 44:25

Try and make me change my mind and stay

Speaker 44:29

We never did too much talking anyway.

Speaker 44:33

Don't think twice, it's all right.

Presenter4:36

That was a reminder you said of when you used to busk to make ends meet. Was this in fact the time of your life when you were doing social work in Camperwell?

Jeremy Irons4:43

Yes. It was immediately leaving school when I, as I say, had no idea really what I wanted to do, and Sherbourne School in Dorset, where I went, had connections with uh

Jeremy Irons4:52

Saint Giles's Camberwell.

Jeremy Irons4:54

which had a great social

Jeremy Irons4:56

Working setup in the in the crypt.

Jeremy Irons4:58

And although they couldn't take me, the neighbouring parish could, St Luke's. There were two worker priests, one a lawyer, one a social worker, and they had nine to five jobs, and they needed somebody to stand in and do the jobs the vicar would have to do, for which he needn't be ordained. So I would uh

Jeremy Irons5:16

help run the youth club, visit the old. I even used to interview people who wanted to be married, which at the age of eighteen was somewhat odd.

Jeremy Irons5:25

And looking back, it was a wonderful antidote to a privileged education.

Jeremy Irons5:29

Because, I mean, there in Packham, there was life. And I remember lying underneath about five kicking kids who wanted to be let into the youth club and who I thought were not a good idea. And as I lay there, I thought, there has to be a different way to cope with people than by giving them black marks, which is what had happened in my schooling. And it was a great eye-opener and very useful for me to have done, a great experience.

Presenter5:52

And well, how did Bristol come into the the reckoning at this point in your career then?

Jeremy Irons5:56

Well, I was looking around for a job in the theatre and took a job off the back of the stage newspaper at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury just to see whether I liked it as a student ASM.

Jeremy Irons6:06

And while I was there, I auditioned for four drama schools, I think. Three of which said go away and think about it because you don't seem to know why you want to be an actor, which indeed I didn't.

Jeremy Irons6:16

Bristol, however, a great man who was a principal at the time called Nat Brenner looked at me and thought, Well, if I can teach him to stand up straight, he may be a marketable actor.

Presenter6:26

How soon after joining Bristol were you sure that you wanted to be an actor, that you got your chosen profession?

Jeremy Irons6:31

Well, I was two years at the theatre school, three years then in the company after that, five.

Jeremy Irons6:36

And it was not till after that, while I was doing a run in London, that I thought

Jeremy Irons6:41

I'm in the right job.

Presenter6:43

That's my second choice of record.

Jeremy Irons6:45

I think one of the moments when I realized the power of theatre was when I was at the Olvik in the Little Theatre, and we did Oh, What a Lovely War. We used to finish up, lined up along front of the uh stage, dressed as Pierrots, and sing straight to the audience.

Jeremy Irons7:00

And whenever we sang this particular song, I would watch in hundreds of faces tears slowly pouring down faces, and I thought, there is power in theatre.

Speaker 47:11

They are scarce.

Speaker 47:14

And they're certainly going to ask us.

Speaker 47:18

The reason why we didn't win

Speaker 47:23

Fund again.

Speaker 47:26

Oh, we'll never tell them.

Speaker 47:30

Don't remember touch

Presenter7:34

It's strange, Jeremy, you say there, that it wasn't until after leaving Bristol that you actually decided you were in the right profession, because it seems to me you made a very bold move. I mean, you left Bristol and decided to make your way in the West End, didn't you? You you you took your chance. First of all, how difficult was it to sort of keep body and soul together while looking for a job in the West End?

Jeremy Irons7:53

Well, I was lucky because my parents at that time had a place in London, so I was able to stay with them for some of the time, certainly go to them at weekends to get some good food inside me.

Jeremy Irons8:03

I felt that if my career was to move ahead.

Jeremy Irons8:07

Repertory wasn't going to be enough for me. I I did want to be able to afford a mortgage and to have a family, and so I wanted some financial reward, and I thought movies or West End is perhaps where I should go towards. I couldn't get any movies.

Jeremy Irons8:19

Uh Simon Ward was doing them all at the time. And I auditioned for many theatres to practise auditioning. And finally, after I think about four months when I'd been keeping Body and Soul together by working for a domestics agency

Presenter8:33

Uh

Jeremy Irons8:33

What? House cleaning and gardening. I always asked to get all the gardening jobs.

Jeremy Irons8:38

So many people in London have had their prime roses cut down because I thought they were weeds. But it meant I could keep living and meant I didn't have to accept the jobs I didn't want in the theatre, which was quite important on that next step.

Presenter8:49

That fascinates me, that that even at that moment in time before you were established, you were fastidious about the choice of material.

Jeremy Irons8:55

Well, there's no one else who will take care of your career except for yourself.

Jeremy Irons9:00

And therefore, if you know what you want to do with your career, and you look at other people's careers and see where they made the right choices, perhaps where they made the wrong choices.

Jeremy Irons9:10

It seems to me one has to be very clear sighted in one's career management.

Jeremy Irons9:13

Or you can be led astray by money or by just

Jeremy Irons9:18

Taking dumb decisions. And I felt I had to get my profile known within London, which is where the

Jeremy Irons9:24

The business centres really. And so the break came with Godspell, opposite David Essex, which we did together for two years.

Jeremy Irons9:33

And it was during that.

Jeremy Irons9:35

That I thought these shoes that I've slipped on really without much thought do fit very, very well. I'm very happy in this business.

Jeremy Irons9:43

Next choice of record.

Jeremy Irons9:44

Is from that show, from Godspell, a soft shoe shuffle duet.

Jeremy Irons9:50

Called all for the best with David.

Jeremy Irons9:53

We want the bees richer than the bees are in honey Never growing old, never feeling cold, pulling pots of gold from thin air

Jeremy Irons10:06

They get the centre of the meat, cushions on the seat, houses on the street, where it's sunny. Summers by the sea, winter's form and free, all of us we get the rest. But who is the land for the sun and the sand? For you've guessed, it's all for the plan.

Presenter10:22

Jeremy, you mentioned there that while waiting for something like Godspell to come along, that you were very particular in making a choice because you looked at people that you admired within the theatre and saw how they handled their careers. Who were the heroes at this point in your career? Who were the people you looked at?

Jeremy Irons10:36

O'Toole was the first person who grabbed me by the shirt scuff.

Jeremy Irons10:40

And made me think, this man makes magic. How does he do it? What does he do? Lawrence of Arabia. I thought, is it just the colour of those eyes, or what is it?

Jeremy Irons10:48

Then I saw him in Bristol as Uncle Vanya and he brought the same quality onto the stage and I thought this is exceptional quality, what is it? I want to find out about it.

Jeremy Irons10:57

Great admirer of him.

Jeremy Irons10:58

On the other hand, I would look at another man I admired, Richard Burton, and think why is he not happier?

Jeremy Irons11:05

What decisions has he made which actually hasn't led to his happiness? Obviously.

Jeremy Irons11:10

This little naive soul thought money is not necessarily the answer.

Jeremy Irons11:15

And even then I looked as I do now at Olivier, and thought that man has packed one hell of a lot in.

Jeremy Irons11:21

That's perhaps what to go for, to try and disturb

Jeremy Irons11:25

Keep stretching, keep trying, various different.

Presenter11:28

After Godspill, I mean you you never actually stopped working, you had a a very good range of work, you got very good critical acclaim.

Jeremy Irons11:28

Yeah.

Presenter11:36

But you were missing that one rocket boost, if you like, that that it was going to take to Stardom. And then I suppose looking back on your career happened with Bride's head, didn't it?

Presenter11:44

How certain were you that Charles Ryder was the part for you?

Jeremy Irons11:49

Well, I knew he interested me, and I knew

Jeremy Irons11:52

that brideshood was going to be made well.

Jeremy Irons11:55

Just the feeling Granada gave me, that the knowledge of Derek Granger, our producer, Michael Lindsey Hogg, the original director, I knew it was a wonderful story, and I thought.

Jeremy Irons12:05

It was most likely to be a class act.

Jeremy Irons12:08

We ift and umed about Sebastian or Charles and

Jeremy Irons12:13

I felt there was a a strange Englishman inside Charles that I'd like to explore.

Jeremy Irons12:18

And which I thought I knew about.

Presenter12:20

How do you know?

Jeremy Irons12:21

I think I was probably educated to be him. Really? A man of inheld emotion, a man who sailed through the world on creamy English charm, as Evelyn Waugh says, which gets you by but actually ain't enough, and a man who ends up at the end of the story with nothing, because he's given nothing of himself.

Jeremy Irons12:40

And

Jeremy Irons12:41

In a way, when I left school, I found myself re-educating myself into I mean, trying to discover those emotions that I'd been told for ten years I had to tamp down.

Jeremy Irons12:51

You know, real men don't only not eat quiche, they don't cry.

Jeremy Irons12:55

And I began to question things like that.

Jeremy Irons12:57

Tactility, I mean hugging my parents I began doing.

Jeremy Irons13:01

Only after I went to drama school.

Jeremy Irons13:03

Because I realized that physicality was not wrong, that that raw emotions were not wrong and in fact were deeply necessary to my craft.

Jeremy Irons13:12

So uh

Jeremy Irons13:13

I had to change from the sort of Charles Ryder character once I started becoming an actor. However,

Jeremy Irons13:19

Reading him in the book, I thought I do know about this and in a way

Jeremy Irons13:22

I'd like to perhaps make it the swan song to that side of myself by playing him.

Presenter13:26

How did it change your life?

Jeremy Irons13:29

Enormously, much more than I thought. I thought it would be a good series in England. I had no idea that Granada would sell it as successfully as they did throughout the world.

Jeremy Irons13:39

And that coupled with a French lieutenant because there's an enormous sort of drag, gravity pull on an English actor because we have so many good actors here that we don't need stars because we can cast accurately from our pool of great actors and in order to get into another orbit of international film stardom one needs a big rocket boost to get out there.

Jeremy Irons14:01

And I'm not sure Bridesay would have done that on its own. I think along with French Lieutenant, and then perhaps some of the work since, it's helped me.

Jeremy Irons14:10

get out there and change my life in that

Jeremy Irons14:13

More better work was offered to me by a wider group of people because more people knew of my work.

Jeremy Irons14:18

became a bit richer.

Jeremy Irons14:20

I became originally paranoid because I thought everybody knows me and I didn't like that very much. I felt I had to behave myself all the time. And then I realized that, well, the good side of that coin is that because everybody knows you and knows what you do, they probably trust you. A bit like living in a village. You know, there are good and bad things about it.

Jeremy Irons14:35

I remember swimming in Sydney harbour one day, and as I surfaced a voice said to me, Hello, Jeremy, having a nice afternoon.

Jeremy Irons14:41

And I looked round and there was a couple sitting in the back of a yacht having a cup of tea, who I didn't know for madam.

Jeremy Irons14:46

They felt they knew me.

Jeremy Irons14:48

So that's the good side.

Presenter14:49

Let's have another choice of records in.

Jeremy Irons14:52

Well, this is a song.

Jeremy Irons14:54

Sung by Anna and Kate McGarrigal, French-Canadian sisters.

Jeremy Irons14:59

And really it reminds me of the birth of my first son, which has to be one of the most magical times in my life.

Jeremy Irons15:05

and one of the most magical occurrences.

Jeremy Irons15:07

And it's called Firstborn Sun.

Speaker 415:11

What a sin.

Speaker 415:14

Her rolling the creative thing.

Speaker 415:20

Daddy's bunnies in the flowers Mother's friends have baby showers Welcoming their heavens

Jeremy Irons15:27

Heaven say

Speaker 415:32

That first morning sun is always

Presenter15:41

You're mentioning there, Jeremy, that the way that all kinds of doors opened to you after Brideshead and French Left Transformer. One of them, of course, was a chance to work on Broadway. You went there with Tom Stoppart's play, The Real Thing. More than that, of course, you had huge success. You won the Tony Award there in immense critical acclaim.

Presenter15:58

Was there a difference between American success and an English success? Can you define it?

Presenter16:03

Well, it's much

Jeremy Irons16:04

Bigger. I mean, they're a country that is founded on success, on succeeding.

Jeremy Irons16:09

They're aristocrats or they're successful people, they're rich people.

Jeremy Irons16:13

So they embrace it and lift you shoulder high.

Jeremy Irons16:17

in a way that can, as a sort of modest, casual Englishman, seem rather embarrassing.

Jeremy Irons16:23

And as I kept saying to people, there are an awful lot more actors like me at home, you know.

Jeremy Irons16:27

However, on the principle of grasping the nettle.

Jeremy Irons16:31

It was an amazing experience. To be fated in New York is like

Jeremy Irons16:36

Nothing else.

Jeremy Irons16:38

And as long as a little bit of you says this is all fantasy land

Jeremy Irons16:42

I'm not as good as I'm being told I am.

Jeremy Irons16:45

You don't spoil, I think, because of it.

Jeremy Irons16:47

And

Jeremy Irons16:49

It's sort of like being at a very long, wonderful party.

Presenter16:53

Another choice of record, please journey.

Jeremy Irons16:56

Well early on in the run of the real thing, when I was a bit homesick the family were back in England.

Jeremy Irons17:03

I was on the stage doing something between a matinee and an evening performance, and suddenly

Jeremy Irons17:08

A sound which I found incredibly evocative blasted out of the stage speakers into my ears as the sound man was checking his equipment.

Jeremy Irons17:16

And I said to him afterwards, I said, What on earth was that? It was honey, it was m what was it? And he said it's uh from the film of Cal by Mark Knopfler and I uh said give me a copy, give me a copy and it's now one of my favourite pieces of music.

Presenter18:00

A castaway is the actor Jeremy Irons.

Presenter18:02

Jeremy, looking at your film career, after French Lauften's w woman, I've got no doubt that you are assaulted, assailed with offers. And yet you look at the what you've done. You've done good films, but but hardly box office movies. First of all, why?

Jeremy Irons18:16

Well, I don't get offered many good films that are box office films. Good films are very, very low on the ground, I find. I I I I maybe am offered three or four a year that are really good, and for some reasons they don't work out.

Jeremy Irons18:30

I've always been choosy. I tend to look at a film and say, Would I mind this in my retrospective?

Presenter18:34

Yeah.

Jeremy Irons18:35

And only once have I gone against that.

Jeremy Irons18:39

Because I wanted to do it for a different reason and actually always regretted doing it because it wasn't a particularly good film at all.

Jeremy Irons18:45

I suppose I believe in quality, if not quantity, and I thought I could go up a a rather short alley if I just started grabbing

Jeremy Irons18:53

All those high figures that were offered to me to make not particularly good films.

Presenter18:58

What about the mission then? Because you you you accepted that. I mean what attracted you there to the

Jeremy Irons19:03

Come on. With a mission. was a wonderful script. It was at a time when I thought it was high time that I did do a picture which broke right across America and across the world, because I'd done, I think, four which had been very respectable, good pictures in the cities, but hadn't broken widely.

Jeremy Irons19:21

So while I was in New York I took on a new agent, Sam Cohn, who's I think one of the best.

Jeremy Irons19:25

In America. And I say this is what we have to look for, a comedy or a really strong, powerful film.

Jeremy Irons19:33

And we looked for two years. I tried very hard to do Out of Africa, which I thought was a splendid film, but didn't get that. Mr Redford is.

Jeremy Irons19:42

Better for the job.

Jeremy Irons19:44

And when the mission came up I thought this has to be it. Roland Joffey had done such wonderful work on the killing fields.

Jeremy Irons19:50

I knew Putnam would take care of the film.

Jeremy Irons19:53

It was a marvellous script. It was opposite one of the world's best film actors, Bob De Niro.

Jeremy Irons19:58

And it was filmed in South America, which is a continent I had been to once fifteen years before and always meant to go back to.

Jeremy Irons20:05

So there was no question that I had to do it, and it turned out to be everything I'd hoped times a thousand.

Presenter20:11

Really? You you play the part of a Jesuit priest in it?

Jeremy Irons20:14

Yeah. Risk. Which do you do? Into the park.

Jeremy Irons20:17

I did two particular types of research. Uh the Jesuits who were there in South American Paraguay in 1750 all left diaries. They recorded everything. And so I read

Jeremy Irons20:26

as many of those as I could lay my hands on, and and studied the historical.

Jeremy Irons20:29

situation out there at the time.

Jeremy Irons20:32

And I met and got to know Daniel Berrigan, who is one of the greatest American Jesuits living.

Jeremy Irons20:40

a great peace campaigner, anti-nuclearist, and a man who believes there is no gap between God and life. The two coexist closely.

Jeremy Irons20:50

And he played a little role in the film and was there

Jeremy Irons20:54

Partly as the film's mentor, partly is my mentor, and we spent a great deal of time together. We went into retreat together, and he talked me through as much as one can over three days of the Jesuit instruction.

Jeremy Irons21:04

Because what I wanted to play was a man who

Jeremy Irons21:07

despite everything else had faith. It's a very difficult thing to to act, actually faith, because the signs are so small.

Jeremy Irons21:13

And actually what you have to do is to get faith.

Jeremy Irons21:16

And I thought the only way I can do this is to really get inside this man Dan Barrigan. And if.

Jeremy Irons21:21

The character works, it's because of Dan's help.

Jeremy Irons21:24

And and did it affect you in the sense that you got faith?

Presenter21:25

And did it?

Jeremy Irons21:28

Yes, I did at the time. It's very extraordinary. Dan describes his job as pneumatic, that he was pumping faith into the actors. Well, in that case, I'm a leaky ball, because it's not really there, although the smell of the gas still lingers in my rubber. I mean, it's still there. But I didn't immediately become extremely religious. I I've always had a sense of God, and I think that has been strengthened a little bit. But during the shooting...

Jeremy Irons21:56

people who I was working with said that I did change, I did become

Jeremy Irons22:02

I don't want to say holier, but I did become more like my character, which I suppose is inevitable.

Jeremy Irons22:08

Yeah.

Presenter22:08

Yeah.

Jeremy Irons22:08

Another choice

Presenter22:08

To record, please.

Jeremy Irons22:10

Well, I would love to hear one of the strongest themes from the mission.

Jeremy Irons22:15

Which Enrico Morricone.

Jeremy Irons22:18

Wrote so well. It's always wonderful when you look at a piece of work and then you hear what the composer has put on top of it and when it's helped you as it did in Brideshead and as I think has done in the Mission, as you sit there as a member of the audience watching it, you feel enormously grateful to the talent of this man, Morricone, in this instance.

Presenter23:06

So Jeremy, here you are, back at Stratford. We're sitting in your garden, just prior to going out on stage tonight to play Richard the Second.

Presenter23:14

What brought you back here? Do you have to get your fix of Shakespeare every so often as that and the the idea of what?

Jeremy Irons23:19

You could look at it like that. When I was on Broadway having all this wonderful triumph.

Jeremy Irons23:25

I kept smelling the avon, which actually doesn't smell very good at this time of year, and I and I thought

Jeremy Irons23:30

That's where I like to be, because I think that will get my feet back on the ground.

Jeremy Irons23:34

and will put me on a stage where a lot of better actors have stood and actually make me measure up a bit.

Jeremy Irons23:41

And I don't think that an English actor who wants to get better

Jeremy Irons23:45

Can turn his back on Shakespeare, who has to be the hardest playwright.

Jeremy Irons23:49

He he calls upon the most from you as an actor.

Jeremy Irons23:53

It also enabled me to work with the family because my wife Shineir Cusack is doing uh

Jeremy Irons23:58

As we speak she is rehearsing Lady Macbeth for the next play that comes on.

Jeremy Irons24:03

And

Jeremy Irons24:04

we're here living as a family, which we haven't done.

Jeremy Irons24:08

Really, f since my first son, who's now eight, was born. We've always sort of jetted about and met at occasional intervals.

Presenter24:11

Yeah.

Jeremy Irons24:15

And you get married and have a family to be together. And so this enables us to do this this season and also for me to test myself professionally and hopefully learn a thing or two.

Presenter24:23

It's quite a brave move, actually. Let me put a quote to you. Eric Shorter wrote in the telegraph, which perhaps you might recognise. He said, talking about you coming back to the stuff, he said, whether it is nobler to stick to your last as a heart-throb of screens great and small, or take up arms against a sea of theatrical prejudice and by opposing, end it. I mean, in other words, there is a great deal of uh prejudice in your profession about the kind of success that you've had.

Jeremy Irons24:46

Yeah.

Presenter24:46

How

Jeremy Irons24:46

Yeah.

Presenter24:46

The value of that.

Jeremy Irons24:48

Well

Jeremy Irons24:49

It's not a very useful thing for me to be aware of.

Jeremy Irons24:52

I dislike the soldier. I feel like a plumber at heart anyway.

Jeremy Irons24:56

Especially when I sit in the in the stores and watch a great actor, I I think I am a plumber, or maybe an electrician, but certainly not an actor. So in a way I have the same prejudice. I think I'm probably a charlatan.

Jeremy Irons25:07

But

Jeremy Irons25:08

I know that nothing risk, nothing gain.

Jeremy Irons25:11

And I knew there was a chance I could fall on my bottom.

Jeremy Irons25:16

And hopefully in the years to come we'll be seen not to have done. It'll be now taken more seriously. Because there is a strange thing. Star in in England is a sort of very light person, a very light thing. It's somebody who features in advertisements for washing machines.

Presenter25:19

We'll do it.

Presenter25:26

It's

Presenter25:30

Another choice of records.

Jeremy Irons25:32

Well, when I was uh

Jeremy Irons25:34

In America one of the joys was meeting many people who I I've admired for a long time.

Jeremy Irons25:38

And I met in my dressing room one night the the singer Carly Simon.

Jeremy Irons25:44

And I had always been a great fan of hers, and had one particular track that I could never understand. I said,'What the hell does this song mean'? having offered her a drink and

Jeremy Irons25:52

got over my delight at seeing her.

Jeremy Irons25:55

And she said, Oh, this is where I live. Uh, you must come and stay there. Bring Sinead up, and I have a little cottage overlooking this harbour on Martha's Vineyard, and come and stay there. You you can have it for a week or however you like. And th the little fishing port which the cottage looks over is called Manemsha.

Jeremy Irons26:11

And uh we stayed there and I went on to direct uh a rock video for Carly of another track.

Jeremy Irons26:18

And that was my first step into direction, which is all thanks to her trust.

Jeremy Irons26:23

So I'd liked very much to hear her track but Manemshaw.

Speaker 426:27

He made love on the jetty in the wave

Speaker 426:33

The fishing boats would come back in at the end of the day He'd run up the hill to my cabin With the swordfish and he'd say Girl, I want you all over again

Speaker 426:53

In Benamsha, Ben Amsha.

Presenter26:57

Jeremy, you mentioned uh that you directed Carly Simon's video. Is is direction...

Presenter27:03

Something that you want to do in the future?

Presenter27:05

Yeah.

Jeremy Irons27:05

I think the more I learn

Jeremy Irons27:08

The more I'd like to. I don't know enough yet. I'm getting better. I'm getting better at working with people and transmitting ideas.

Jeremy Irons27:14

And the more you work with good directors, the more you see how they do it, the more you work with bad directors, the more you regret you're not directing it yourself. So I'd hope that in the future it would be a

Jeremy Irons27:26

Another string to my bow. What about acting in the in the immediate future? What are the plans?

Jeremy Irons27:31

Well, we take these plays in February and March up to Newcastle.

Jeremy Irons27:36

and will at some time next year do them all in London.

Jeremy Irons27:39

I hope to fit another film in next year as well, so quite when we'll do these plays in London I don't know, and after that the horizon dims and I don't know what.

Jeremy Irons27:49

Right, let's have a final choice of record then, please.

Jeremy Irons27:52

Well, I think

Jeremy Irons27:53

The final reminder, if one thinks of these records as being reminders of happy times.

Jeremy Irons27:59

It has to be my wife, Sinead Cusack. I think she would be pleased that she is the last thing in my head before I go to sleep at night. And she is only to be found on one recording.

Jeremy Irons28:12

From an R S C Panto called the Swandan Gloves.

Jeremy Irons28:15

And I feel the lyrics sum up pretty exactly my feelings towards her and indeed her personality. It's called demure but dangerous.

Speaker 428:26

But dangerous The one thing I'm not is a common puss I shouldn't have to say I'm a cat that's very use to get in away Denure and available But my pedigree isn't sailable I purr, but I burn slow

Presenter28:55

So, Jeremy, you're now on your desert island, and you have to imagine that seven of your records are washed away and one is left. Which one would it be?

Jeremy Irons29:04

I think it would probably be the the theme music from Carl by Mark Knopfler, because that has Irishness, which would remind me of my wife.

Jeremy Irons29:11

It's enormously soothing, and I could listen to it for a long time.

Jeremy Irons29:16

Well, I think a really good construction manual. I'm pretty good at building and would have a go at some sort of house and maybe a boat to go with it. But there are now and again knots that I can't remember how to do and particular joints that I forget, so it would be useful to have.

Presenter29:30

Um what about the luxury object? What would that be?

Jeremy Irons29:33

I think I like to take a very nice camera and unlimited film, because it's a thing I grow more and more interested in doing, taking photographs. And uh

Jeremy Irons29:44

I'd never get them developed, so I'd never see my failures, but.

Jeremy Irons29:47

I could perhaps send off the the the film in bottles and hope that somebody would get them developed.

Jeremy Irons29:52

Uh

Presenter29:52

Jeremy's, thank you very much indeed.

Jeremy Irons29:54

Yeah.

Presenter29:54

Yeah.

Speaker 330:01

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.