After making a less than stellar debut as Mikhail Fokine in Herbert Ross' biopic "Nijinsky" (1980), Irons rose to screen stardom as Meryl Streep's leading man in Karel Reisz's "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981). He went on to more eclectic roles, including the caddish lover in David Jones' film version of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" (1983), but seemed miscast as Proust's hero in "Swann in Love" (1984) and as a Jesuit priest in Roland Joffe's "The Mission" (1986). He gave a bravura performance as the deranged twin brother protagonists of David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" (1988) and won an Oscar as haughty international playboy and murder suspect Claus von Bulow in Barbet Schroeder's "Reversal of Fortune" (1990), which reunited him with Glenn Close.
Irons continued to display his versatility as a paranoid insurance clerk in Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller, "Kafka" (1991), a history teacher haunted by memories of childhood in "Waterland" and a conservative English politician undone by an obsessive affair with his son's girlfriend in "Damage" (both 1992). Although he tried gamely, his reunion with Cronenberg for "M. Butterfly" (1993) failed to impress critics or audiences. His second film with both Streep and Close, "The House of the Spirits" (also 1993), found them all miscast as South American aristocrats. Irons fared better providing the sinuous voice of the subtly villainous Scar in the animated Disney's mega-hit "The Lion King" (1994). His attempt to cross-over to more mainstream fare as the dyed-blond antagonist to Bruce Willis in "Die Hard With a Vengeance" (1995) met with mixed results.
Irons' next two roles were schematically linked: in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty" (1996), he was an ailing writer who is reinvigorated when confronted with the voluptuous teenaged Liv Tyler, while in Adrian Lyne's remake of "Lolita" (1997), he was a well-chosen Humbert Humbert, enamored of the pubescent title character. In director Wayne Wang's "Chinese Box" (1997) he played a leukemia-ridden Hong Kong-based British financial reporter who has long held a torch for bar owner Vivian (Gong Li), a former "hostess" from mainland China, who eventually begins to reciprocate his affections. After making for an iconic Father Aramis in the 1998 film adaptation of the classic Alexander Dumas adventure "The Man In the Iron Mask" starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, Irons' talents were squandered in a pair of villainous roles in two lackluster wannabe blockbusters, "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000) and "The Time Machine" (2002).
He balanced the scales with accomplished turns in higher-brow fare, including the A&E miniseries "Longitude" (2000) as a 20th century naval officer who discovers 18th Century clockmaker John Harrison's abandoned clocks and works on restoring them; his widely praised performance as F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Showtime telepic "Last Call" (2002), the story of the tortured author's final months as he writes what might have become his best work, as told by his secretary Frances Kroll (Neve Campbell); director Franco Zeffirelli' biopic "Callas Forever" (2002), as opera legend Maria Callas' friend and former manager, Larry Kelly, who argues that by lip-synching to her old recordings for a film of Bizet's "Carmen" she will recapture her lost youth and, whether cheating or not, leave behind the priceless legacy of a complete dramatic performance; and "And Now...Ladies and Gentlemen" (2003), as a dissatisfied criminal mastermind who sets out on a one-man sailing trip around the world to find meaning in his life and becomes entangled with a burned-out jazz singer (Patricia Kaas) trying to forget a fizzled love affair.
Irons turned in a pair of particularly fine performances in 2004, first as a disdainful Antonio arguing over the pound of flesh with Al Pacino's Shylock in "William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice"; then made for the agreeably cuckolded husband-manager of an aging, diva-like 1930s stage actress (Annette Bening) who takes up a dalliance of his own in director Istvan Szabo's brilliant "Being Julia."
In director Ridley Scott's disappointing "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), only Irons, in the role of the Jerusalem king's closest adviser, had a role juicy enough to withstand the film's otherwise furious scenery chewing. His next project, "Casanova" (2005), director Lasse Hallstrom's fictionalized account of the legendary lothario (Heath Ledger) falling in love at last, was easily one of the most ill-conceived and disappointing films of the year, despite lavish production values and game performances by Irons—lustily attacking his role as the villainous Catholic Church inquisitor Pucci who longs to execute the renowned libertine for heresy—and the rest of the all-star cast. He then joined the cast of the lavish HBO miniseries "Elizabeth I" (lensed 2005) as the Earl of Leicester, the lover and most trusted confidant of the Virgin Queen (Helen Mirren). Irons’ supporting role as the conflicted and eventually death-ridden Leicester earned the actor a Golden Globe Awards nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. He also earned a nod from the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries.