If you've been looking for that date-night Max Irons double feature, your time is now. The talented, 29-year-old British actor stars in both Woman in Gold and The Riot Club, two new films currently playing in limited release.
"A Max Irons double feature, that sounds nice," Irons said during a recent interview."They're both films that I'm proud of. They're both very different films. So I guess it's nice for people to see different sides of what I can do."
"I sort of like that Woman in Gold and The Riot Club are out at the same time," he said."I've got another film, The Devil's Harvest, which I just finished, but that will be out later this year."
Based on true events that occurred between 1996 and 2006, Woman in Gold centres on Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), an elderly Jewish woman who, 60 years after fleeing Vienna to escape the Nazis prior to World War II, attempts to reclaim her family's stolen possessions. Chief among them is a painting of her beloved aunt, a piece better known to the world as Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.' Altmann hires a young, inexperienced American lawyer (Ryan Reynolds) and takes her case public, battling the Austrian establishment, contending with deep and long-standing prejudices and even compelling the US Supreme Court to get involved.
Tatiana Maslany and Irons appear in the film's intermittent flashbacks as the young Maria and Fritz Altmann. Maria and Fritz, an aspiring opera singer, married only a few weeks before the Nazis annexed Vienna in March 1938.
Irons, the son of actors Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack, was vaguely aware of the story. He had seen 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' at the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, he recalled, and during his visit the museum staff had explained what happened with the Altmanns.
"It had sort of gone in one ear and slightly out the other," Irons admitted."I was aware that it was a case of restitution, but I had no idea the extent to which it was this David-versus-Goliath situation. This one lady, in the twilight of her life, was taking on the Austrian government, Austrian pride and, to a certain extent, also the American government."
Irons described Woman in Gold as two separate films. On modern-day sets and locations, director Simon Curtis shot scenes with Mirren, Reynolds and Daniel Bruhl, who plays an Austrian journalist. Then he worked with Irons and Maslany, shooting on period sets and at historical locations.
"We would bump into Helen and Ryan and Daniel and sort of ask them what they were up to, what the feel of their film was, what the tone of it was, versus ours," Irons said."What we were doing in our bit was basically context. We were explaining what happened to this family and the injustices forced upon them. That was our purpose."
"The story interested me, but it was also the people around me, like Helen and Simon Curtis and Tatiana," he continued."And I liked the idea of the film, which is about making things right. Terrible things happen, and it's important, where one can, to set these things right. That's what Maria Altmann did and, hopefully, shining a spotlight on this particular case might cause other people to move forward with their own cases."
Irons called Maslany"fantastic" to work with, but admitted that it was tough, at times, because they both were being asked to speak a language which wasn't their native tongue.
He then recalled an amusing meeting with the film's producer, Hollywood heavy hitter Harvey Weinstein.
"When I was in consideration for this," Irons said,"I had a meeting with Harvey, and he said to me, 'Can you speak German?' I said, 'No, I can't.' He said, 'Well, you can learn it for the audition, right?'
"To anyone else you'd say, 'Well, I think that's going to be a bit difficult,'" he said."But to a man like him you just say, 'Yes.' And somehow it transpired that I got the part. Tatiana and I learned it all phonetically, and she's such a talented actress that, once we got on set, it all just fell into place, really."
As for The Riot Club, Irons revealed that he initially passed on it. Based on a play by Laura Wade, the drama centres on a group of spoiled rich children (Irons, Sam Claflin etc.) who are part of a drinking club at Oxford University. Irons plays Miles, the least snobby, least toxic member of the group.
"I found the world in which these characters exist, the subject matter and the values these characters stood for, to be so unpleasant that I didn't really want to be associated with it," Irons said."Then I read deeper into it and I saw that Laura Wade had created almost a metaphor.
"These people aren't to be taken literally," he explained."She's actually talking about the world that they live in and the double standard of justice that exists in our class system. And that was something I did want to be involved in, that idea."
On deck for Irons, as noted, is The Devil's Harvest, a romantic drama set in World War II-era Ukraine. The film co-stars Terence Stamp, Barry Pepper and Samantha Barks. It's another typically eclectic choice for Irons, whose credits include such films and television series as Dorian Gray (2009), Red Riding Hood (2009), The Host (2013) and 'The White Queen' (2013), as well as several plays.
"When I look at the actors I respect, like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti - taking aside the franchise model, which I think is a dangerous and slightly unpredictable way of operating for young people - they tend to lay a foundation of variety, of working with good people on good scripts, and of making good movies," Irons said."I think that is the key to longevity, and also to keeping you on your toes and letting you keep learning."
"You can't learn enough in this business, I think," he said,"and everything you do and the different stuff you do just makes you better and better as an actor. And that's my goal, really."
In recent years the press has dubbed Irons"the next Robert Pattinson." He's also been touted as"the next Jeremy Irons." For his part, he's perfectly content to be the first Max Irons.
"I've heard a bit of that in my life," Irons said,"but then I think that any young actor that comes out of England now is called the next somebody. If you start reading into that or try to contemplate that or try to manipulate the idea, it's a road to nowhere."
"Like I say, concentrate on the work, working with good people and doing good stuff," Irons concluded."I think that's all you can do. That's your job. That's what you should be thinking about, and not the perception of you."
Via
No comments:
Post a Comment