Jeremy Irons - Actor and Campaigner HARDtalk

Cabrera in a play-off at Augusta. That's all from me. HARDtalk is

next. Welcome to HARDtalk. My guest today

he is one of Britain's most Jeremy Iron?I ? Jeremy Iron of

the very troubled brooding upper- class gentleman. He has just

finished making a documentary film about the potentially devastating

impact of the mountain's of toxic waste polluting our planet. He is

an actor with very strong opinions. Jeremy Irons, welcome to HARDtalk.

In the last few years you have very definitely become an actor with the

causes, with campaigns, that you think about going down that route?

I don't see it say rude, I see it as part of life. Like a lot of

people who do not have a voice, I have opinions about how we live our

lives, what we do to their environment and being an actor I

have a bit of a voice. One rarely taken seriously because I am actor,

but did back it is harder for you to make the serious point? I think

we think people in politics are serious. We do not necessarily

trust them and we probably think they are less informed than most

people in the street, but nevertheless I think there is an

element - you look at somebody who is committed, like Vanessa Redgrave,

who has taken a lot of flak - I think a lot of people are very

worried when people step out of their path, so to speak. As you

would probably if you saw David Cameron pla?I ? Cameron pla-

Lady Windermere. One thing that sticks in mind mind is no longer go

on HARDtalk we spoke to Rupert Everett. He has written very

frankly and with great humour and also some pain about his role for a

going going to some of the poorest places,

seeing people in desperate straits and the difficulties he sometimes

had matching that with the lifestyle he was living, with the

publicists and the international two can be very difficult. I wonder

whether you feel that? I don't find it difficult. I know the role I

have. For a time I was an ambassador for the feud it -- Food

and Agriculture Organisation. was all about the world's hungriest

people. Yes. I came to the conclusion that it was a very

inefficient organisation are not what I wanted to be a part of, so I

resigned. You walk away because he did not believe in what they were

doing? I went to a conference in Rome and came away thinking it was

a lot of talk and not much action. There was a huge amount of money

being spent their and a huge amount of money being wasted. It is not

the way to do it. We know this is a problem with a lot of the UN. I

felt I couldn't be useful because I - had I continued to do so, then I

would have known that whatever value my photograph was in a

refugee camp or whatever, at least it got it out there and I think

what we have to do if we have that ability is to get causes are out

You have very different team are now made a commitment to one

pressing global issue and that is how we manage waste globally. --

you have very definitely. And in particular the dangers of poisoning

the planet in the way we handle the trash. What you -- what tree to

that? I am interested because it is something that has happened in my

lifetime. It didn't happen before the Second World War. Wigan have a

throwaway society that we have developed over those years. -- we

didn't. It also seems to me to be a problem but because it is what we

throw away, it is a problem we forget. A problem we do not think

about. Yet it is a problem that has our ocean, on our air-quality and

economics. What we are doing is making things and throwing away

having used them, not re-using them. Isn't it a problem born out of the

very nature of consumer capitalism? When you take on the subject, and

you have made a film and that it - which has taken you around the

world to look at the most egregious incidences of mishandling of toxic

waste in different countries - when you take it on, you are basically

saying how consumer capitalist culture is dysfunctional. It is

dysfunctional. We know that. you saying capitalism... Just

because something is dysfunctional doesn't mean you have to change it,

you just have to operate. Same as capitalism hinted at -- 2008, we

discovered it did not work. It was a pyramid scheme and it didn't work.

In order to grow the economies, it relied on its borrowing money we

didn't have. Now we are paying that back. I am not saying that

capitalism doesn't work, but it wasn't working very well up until

then. I think consumerism is the same. I believe we need to be a

healthy economy and grow at 2.5%, or do we? Why can't we have a

balanced economy? We know that the world has finite resources. Just do

Do the sums on 3% economic growth every year. Put that forward 100

years and see what that means as far as consummation is concerned.

People watching and listening to this in India, China and many of

the emerging and developing economy say that is fine, but you are

speaking from a position of greater luxury in the West and you can

afford to countenance different ways of approaching our economic

model. We still want to acquire just a very little piece of what

you have had for the past 50 years. And they absolutely should, and

they will. While they do it they must be careful about what they are

throwing into the atmosphere. We have made terrible mistakes. The

air quality we know in China and probably parts of India is not

history and I am sure the Chinese and the Indians are looking and

seeing how we have managed and thinking, we must manage this in

another way. I'm not saying that people must live poor. If anyone is

going to be poor, it is going to be us in Europe, not Asia. I am not

saying that you cannot have what we have it. I am just saying let's

make staff, let's train people to repair that staff and let's make it

last. You focus on, in terms of solutions or approaches that might

work for saving our planet from poison, you focus on first of all

reducing consumption... Not saving the planet. We must be very clear

here. We are talking about saving lives. The planners will take care

of itself. The planet will outlast lives,

lives, saving hospital bills, saving not having to we buy

commodities because we are using them. Very practical things. Do you

see an irony in ute pushing very hard on this issue when if one

hard on this issue when if one looks at the industry in which you

work, it is to the outsider one of the most wasteful, won the most

excessive, and one of the most extravagant industry's one could

imagine? Not from where I stand. I work with people who - I am working

out of Hungary a lot of the moment. We recycle the food we do not eat.

If it is fresh enough, we'll send it away to be eaten by other people

all we will composted. We drink out the Hollywood way, is it? I think

you sort of may be joined the world in thinking that the movie industry

is fast the wasteful. It is not. It a lot of money to make that money.

A if you are a politician, I would am going to do it to you. You are

an actor who believes passionately in the sort of campaigns. Therefore,

I think it is fair to ask you, why, for example, you feel it is right

to own multiple homes? Given everything we have just talked

about. Because I have earned that money and I paid the tax on that

money and what I value in life that his privacy. The only way I can

have - I live in a very public and I am not filming, I like to be

with my family or my own. You don't need half a dozen homes to the

private. No, but I don't actually private. No, but I don't actually

have half a dozen homes. I have two homes. One in this country and one

in Ireland. I happen to love houses and I do own more than that, but

they are not homes. They are places that other members of the family

living. To see that they may be questions that arise... But what is

behind your question is, if you are in a fortunate position in life,

then how can you criticise anything? Well, the people who run

the world are all in fortunate positions. The difference between

me and a politician and why maybe that I live life. Politicians love

politics. One of the problems now have done nothing else in their

lives. I have built. I have been a builder I have been an actor. I

have played other sorts of people. I have put net huge numbers of

people and work in different countries all over the world. I

have seen how they are and how they are different from us. Of course I

have opinions and of course I see ways that we are living life that

we are running a world at that do not make sense. And I talk about it.

You do. What I am picking away at his Port SES potential

pick another one. The message of the film, Trashed, is very powerful.

authorities, for governments, to do more, to regulate more, to be much

stricter in the way they organise the disposal of waste. And yet

there is another part of you, Jeremy Irons, that seems to me to

regulation, of government red tape, of public officials telling in did

do. That comes out in your attitude towards smoking. The recognition --

recognised a contradiction between the man who was to see regulation

and the libertarian? Of course. I have always believed, and I know it

is a very fine line, have always believed - I don't like Wall's, it

is in my nature. I think we have to act in a way that does not harm

others. Smoking harms others and yet... If I'm walking down the road

or walking in a park, it doesn't hurt anybody. And yet it is illegal.

It is telling the atmosphere. It is deeply unpleasant to people nearby.

coming out of motor cars and what is putting into the beef we are

reading and what is sprayed on the are eating. I mean, please, have a

Nothing is being done! Why do you think cancer is still rising even

Because of Because of what people are

ingesting in the air and food. Do not told me I am not allowed to

smoke in a 58 acre park in the middle of New York because I will

kill someone or myself. If it is myself, it is my own choice. It is

stupid thinking. Would you call insistence on the primacy of

individual liberty when it comes to has to come -- there has to be the

primary thing. It has been, in this country. Looking at recent public

pronouncements you have made, you have made quite a few... Are never

interviewed by people because I'm selling a product. A documentary

called trashed mac. People go off subject because they don't want to

talk about trashed or whatever film I am talking about. They want to

connect to you to your campaigns. They come off subject. I make a

comment because we are discussing. Then it is called a public

pronouncement. It is not. It is my personal opinion. That is a fair

comment. Like many other people, I am fascinated by your opinions.

There are interesting. You are not frightened to put them out. Another

one which was reasoned and fascinating was your view of gay

marriage. You clearly expressed disquiet about the idea. You did it

because he said you were not sure if in and... Fathers might want to

marry the signs for tax purposes. Yes. I do not have any opinion

about gay marriage. I do not have much opinion about heterosexual

marriage. I think it might possibly protect children. That is why I

married my wife. A gay marriage is not something I have feelings about

at all. Quite interesting, what it does to marriage, which is why we

are having this bizarre conversation, Budget uses from an

American journalist. -- it is from an American journalist. You thought

it might debase the institution of marriage. Which is an interesting

Marriage is about procreation, really. Historically, that is how

it has always been. But I am about the informed. I actually do not

know the difference between a Civic country, and marriage. I do not

know what the difference is. I know the Church has problems

historically. I don't know if those problems will go away. In America,

it is different. In some states, you can marry, same-sex partners.

In sum, you cannot. I was amused by the idea that I put forward. It had

nothing to do with my feelings. I think a marriage is wonderful. At

the end of the interview, which was not reported, if anything cause

anybody together in a relationship, it is great. If it works as a clue,

if it makes you feel better, if it makes you laugh your part not more,

great. -- partner more.I felt I should have buttoned my lip. I was

your view of where we are at terms of gender and sexual politics,

relations between men and women. The other thing or you said which

caused a huge stir. I wonder if you wished you had but and your lips.

You said a while ago, I am paraphrasing,... Go ahead.

Paraphrase. You said, in your view, it was not a big deal for a man to

pat a woman's behind. Any woman worth her value would deal with it.

Yes. That peed off an awful a lot of women. Many women were upset. I

do not say part the behind. That is If I touched a woman in a way that

was not welcome, that any woman and told me not to do that. Is it

better for men not to do it in the first place? No. We need to touch

and love each other and communicate. It is all part of that. I wantart of

get to some pass -- acting before we finish. I have not got there yet.

Let me ask you about politics. You have strong opinions and beliefs.

They are political in one way or another. It seems to me, you have

made a political transition, whether Republic in the '90s. Tony

Blair developed his project. -- very public. You even gave money.

Quite a lot. It was.How much? telling you. Do you regret it?No.

It was the right thing to do at the time. How was put up with the

Tories. We needed it. The whole country for that. I was part of

that. Eight years later, you have had enough. I was disappointed.

Governments are terrible. I look at all of them and I think, you poor

things. If you look at the heart of your career, your great television

and film career, a lot of actors like you have decided to make their

homes on the west coast of America. To focus on the American market and

sustaining a career in America. You never did that. I thought about it.

Broadway. My son was at school there. We have one child. We

discussed whether we would stay and make a career at there. She is

Irish. She is transplanted by living in England. I am a garden

there. They are nice gardens in America. I am a delicate plant.

Operating things is not necessarily the best th?I ? the best th

rooting. For my make-up, if things rooting. For my make-up, if things

are like Devine, what I love about life and this country, and Ireland,

I need to b?I ? I need to bAn act what he comes out of. What he cares

about, but his passions are. Partly what you are saying is that acting

is not the all and end all for you. No. Not all of Jeremy Irons is

driven by your job. The job we identify with you anyway. I love

the job. It is a small percentage of the time. These days, I get paid

to do publicity. Films are so hard there and do it. We are almost out

of time. Can we reflect on something interesting about your

career. He rolls people will always have in their minds when they think

of you. From Brideshead Revisited, one of the greatest TV dramas ever

made, to reversal of fortune. There is a type that you hhat you h yours

yourself playing. Somewhat aristocratic. The mask of a

gentleman, but a sort of breeding and with lots of demons beneath the

find it easy to identify with those because there is something of that

in you? I do not know. It is interesting why you want to do

something, why you want to buy a certain car, a tie, why you want to

eat a certain Bill, work for a certain person, told a certain

story. Very interesting. Many things go into that decision. I

also used to say, it is my appetite. I want to discover the geography of

that person. You said acting takes up a small space in your life. Will

small. As if small. As if you get older, you get

offered less that is interesting. You have less energy. I want to

start writing or something. You have to get rid of all of this

malaise. In life. To find a bit of calm to get onto something else. I