He appeared in many West End theatre productions, including the Shakespeare plays The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and Richard II.

After starring in dramas such as Moonlighting (1982), Betrayal (1983), The Mission (1986), and Dead Ringers (1988), he received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune (1990).

Other notable films include Kafka (1991), Damage (1992), M. Butterfly (1993), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Lolita (1997), The Merchant of Venice (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Appaloosa (2008), and Margin Call (2011).

[5][6] After years of success in the West End in London, Irons made his New York debut as Henry, a man engaging in an affair in the Tom Stoppard play The Real Thing at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway acting opposite Glenn Close.

Irons seems to be one of the few actors today who could be so completely convincing as the Victorian lover who thinks he's ahead of his time, being a follower of Darwin and a socially enlightened member of his privileged class, but who finds, ultimately, that he still has a long way to go.

"[11] After these major successes, he played the leading role of an exiled Polish building contractor, working in the Twickenham area of southwest London, in Jerzy Skolimowski's independent film Moonlighting (1982).

In addition, he appeared in the Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Mission in 1986 and in the dual role of twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers alongside Geneviève Bujold in 1988.

He is also one of the readers in the 4x CD boxed set of The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, produced by Marc Sinden and sold in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund.

[18] He voiced English soldier and WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon in The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1997), receiving the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.

[19] Other films include Danny the Champion of the World (1989), Reversal of Fortune (1990), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, Kafka (1991), Damage (1993), M. Butterfly (1993) working again with David Cronenberg, The House of the Spirits (1993) appearing again with Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas.

He also featured in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (1996), the 1997 remake of Lolita, and the 1998 film version of The Man in the Iron Mask, playing the musketeer Aramis share credit with Leonardo DiCaprio, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne.

[20] In 2003, Irons played Fredrik Egerman in a New York revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, and two years later appeared as King Arthur in Lerner and Loewe's Camelot at the Hollywood Bowl.

Rupert Smith of The Guardian praised their on-screen chemistry writing, "Mirren and Irons are a screen marriage made in heaven, and when they let rip with the thwarted passion all might have been well.

Speaking at 200 words per minute and pausing for 1.2 seconds between sentences, Irons came very close to the ideal voice model, with the linguist Andrew Linn explaining why his "deep gravelly tones" inspired trust in listeners.

As German villain Simon Gruber his recital of the English riddle "As I was going to St Ives" (from Die Hard with a Vengeance) appears in the 2014 book The Art of Communicating Eloquently.

[35] In 2017, he recited the spoken sections, most notably "Late Lament", for The Moody Blues' 50th Anniversary Tour of "Days Of Future Passed", and also appears on the video presentation.

[36] Irons also appeared in the documentary for Irish television channel TG4, Faoi Lán Cheoil, in which he is seen taking fiddle lessons from Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh.

He read the audiobook recording of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (he had also appeared in the 1997 film version of the novel), and James and the Giant Peach by the children's author Roald Dahl.

Beginning in 2012 with The Waste Land, he went on to record Four Quartets in 2014, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock on the centenary of its publication in 2015, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats in 2016.

[51] In 2020, Irons was one of 40 British voices to read three to four verses (broadcast daily) of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 150-verse 18th century poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In 2018, he played General Vladimir Korchnoi in Francis Lawrence's spy thriller film Red Sparrow, based on Jason Matthews's book of the same name.

[67] In 2004, he publicly declared his support for the Countryside Alliance, referring to the 2004 Hunting Act as an "outrageous assault on civil liberties" and "one of the two most devastating parliamentary votes in the last century".

[68] Irons is an outspoken critic of the death penalty and has supported the campaign by the human rights organisation Amnesty International UK to abolish capital punishment worldwide.

"[70] In 2009, Irons signed a petition in support of Polish film director Roman Polanski, calling for his release after he was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.

He supports a number of other charities, including The Prison Phoenix Trust in England, and the London-based Evidence for Development, which seeks to improve the lives of the world's most needy people by preventing famines and delivering food aid, for both of which he is an active patron.

[92][93] In 2010, Irons starred in a promotional video,[94] for "The 1billionhungry project" – a worldwide drive to attract at least one million signatures to a petition calling on international leaders to move hunger to the top of the political agenda.

[99] Irons is a patron of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company, which produces Shakespearean plays annually in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire,[100] and a London-based drama school, The Associated Studios.

[101] Irons was bestowed an Honorary Life Membership by the University College Dublin Law Society in September 2008, in honour of his contribution to television, film, audio, music, and theatre.

[106] The Prize organization stated, "With Jeremy Irons, life and art have been mixed to the point of creating an inimitable style, as man and actor, which blends an air of freedom with the enviable capacity to enter into the spirit of the most varied productions, in theatre, cinema and television, without ever betraying himself or giving up his independence.

In productions great and small, with an unflinching love for his profession, Jeremy Irons says of himself: "I became an actor to be a rogue and vagabond, so I don't think the establishment would be able to welcome me as one of its own – because I'm not."