Jeremy John Irons (born 19 September 1948) is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969 and has since appeared in many West End theatre productions, including The Winter’s Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Godspell, Richard II, and Embers. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and received a Tony Award for Best Actor. 
Irons’s first major film role came in the 1981 romantic drama The French Lieutenant’s Woman. After starring in dramas such as Moonlighting (1982), Betrayal (1983), and The Mission(1986), he gained critical acclaim for portraying twin gynaecologists in David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller Dead Ringers (1988). In 1990, Irons played accused murderer Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune, and took home multiple awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Other notable films have included Steven Soderbergh’s mystery thriller Kafka (1991), the period drama The House of the Spirits (1993), the romantic drama M. Butterfly (1993), the voice of Scar in Disney’s The Lion King (1994), Simon Gruber in the action film Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), the drama Lolita (1997), Musketeer Aramis in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), the action adventure Dungeons & Dragons (2000), the drama The Merchant of Venice (2004), the drama Being Julia (2004), the epic historical drama Kingdom of Heaven (2005), the fantasy-adventure Eragon (2006), the Western Appaloosa (2008), and the indie drama Margin Call (2011). In 2016, he appeared in Assassin’s Creed and, starting that year, he plays Alfred Pennyworth in the DC Extended Universe, beginning with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and later reprising the role in Justice League (2017) and The Batman. 
