Jeremy Irons’ least favourite Jeremy Irons movie: “Couldn’t have been worse”
Most actors will have a movie in their back catalogue they’d rather not be reminded of, especially if their career is long enough. Take Michael Caine for instance, who did the fourth Jaws movie in 1987 and didn’t even bother watching it, although he did say he liked the house he bought with the fee. Jeremy Irons is another British acting great, and his equivalent to Jaws: The Revenge is undoubtedly the 2017 DC comics movie, Justice League.
Irons, one of the more respected English actors thanks to a Best Actor Oscar and a lifetime spent appearing in the likes of Damage, Lolita, and Die Hard with a Vengeance, took on the role of Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler, in the Zack Snyder-directed superhero flick, which remains one of the most expensive productions in history.
Devastatingly, Snyder lost his daughter while the film was in production, and it was left to the Avengers director Joss Whedon to step in, rewriting and reshooting several scenes. When the movie was eventually released, despite bringing in a huge amount of money, it was still seen as a flop, and DC Comics fans began to demand that Snyder’s original vision for the film be honoured with a new version.
While that did arrive with a ‘Snyder Cut’ in 2021, which went down far better with audiences and critics alike, it wasn’t enough to make Irons a fan of the franchise. He told Variety that he hadn’t bothered to watch the new version, saying: “Strangely, I think I have it and I haven’t seen it. I shall have to hunt it out and see if I have it somewhere online or on a DVD. I remember talking to Zack (Snyder) before he did it and being very interested to see what he came up with. It couldn’t have been worse.”
It wasn’t enough to put Irons off being involved in the world of superheroes, however, and not even enough to stop him playing the same character again. He was cast as Ozymandias in HBO’s Watchmen series in 2019 and, to some acclaim, picked up an ‘Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy’ for the role. And after he played British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in Netflix’s Munich – The Edge of War in 2022, he returned to Alfred Pennyworth and DC Comics when he appeared in 2023’s The Flash, starring Ezra Miller.
He’s currently starring in the fourth season of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show as Jennifer Aniston’s estranged father and said he was drawn to being on the series after hearing about it from friends and family. He said he had an instant chemistry with Aniston and couldn’t pass up playing what he described as a ‘juicy’ role.
Irons has also just wrapped on a film called Palestine 36, a movie from female Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir that tells a story set in the 1930s of a man moving between Jerusalem and his rural home as the threat of World War II looms and the ruling British Empire battles resistance.
He has several projects coming up, including a sequel to The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, the Highlander reboot that unites Henry Cavill with Russell Crowe, and a comedy called Encore, which stars Irons, Glenn Close, Henry Winkler and Don Johnson as retirement home occupants trying to ignite their former showbiz careers.
