Jeremy Irons

In Kafka (1991), Jeremy Irons answers questions fully and politely, as if this might persuade people to leave him alone. His insurance clerk writes at night and would rather nobody knew. We felt uneasy for him when someone in authority was kind and he could not work out why. Irons keeps him tired and cornered without losing his courtesy. It is a quiet performance, and a useful reminder that his voice need not put him in charge.

The breakthrough came with Brideshead Revisited (1981), in which he played Charles Ryder, and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). The subsequent move towards enigmatic and villainous parts runs through Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune (1990) and Scar in The Lion King (1994). That rich, resonant voice is an obvious asset for such casting, but it is worth remembering the anxious clerk he played between them.

Steven Soderbergh gets good work from him in Kafka, though the mystery itself is a fairly ordinary thriller. Guinness supplies courteous menace, while Armin Mueller-Stahl's Inspector Grubach listens as if he has already read the report. Irons is well matched with actors who can make a polite conversation uncomfortable. Those performances give us a reason to stay, but they cannot supply the dread that the story lacks.

In David Ayer's The Beekeeper (2024), he plays Wallace Westwyld, an old intelligence hand employed to keep Josh Hutcherson's rich brat alive. His briefing about the secret order has the weary precision of someone who would prefer not to repeat himself. Unfortunately, Kurt Wimmer's script makes the hive metaphor everybody's business, explaining it until there is little pleasure left in hearing it. Irons is funny in his fatigue, but the speeches still slow a clean, brutal action film. Try Kafka for the quieter work; approach The Beekeeper only if blunt revenge is already your idea of an evening.