There is, these days, no shortage of figures in the public eye who have leveraged a famous last name, and little more, into a modicum of renown or notoriety. Max Irons is not one of them. Yes, his parents are the Oscar winner Jeremy Irons and the Tony-nominated actress Sinéad Cusack, but it is clear when speaking to the young British actor that he has rightfully earned the success that is now coming his way.

Irons, who has a number of roles on stage and screen—both big and small—already under his belt, will be seen this spring in The Riot Club, a forceful and provocative examination of English upper-class privilege and debauchery from Lone Scherfig (who directed Carey Mulligan to an Oscar nomination in An Education), and with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds in Woman in Gold, about a Holocaust survivor’s fight to regain possession of an iconic Klimt painting. For the 29-year-old actor, both films offer a dramatic change of pace from some of his previous work, such as a lead role in The Host, a science fiction thriller from the author of the Twilight series, that led to his being dubbed “the next Robert Pattinson.” “The first couple of things I did were more fantastical and were aimed at a particular audience, the young-adult audience, which I’m not anymore,” he says. “So to be doing stuff that isn’t really geared for them, it feels more natural. It’s slightly more enjoyable.”

Irons’ path to where he stands today has been a gradual one, which is just the way he likes it. After fighting dyslexia through grade school, which he credits for many auditions that ended in failure, he first took a real interest in theater when he was able to direct and perform in Neil LaBute’s a gaggle of saints. “I got the chance to direct it myself, so it was more on my terms,” he recalls. “Once I did that, I thought, ‘This is the most fun, most engaging thing I’ve done since I’ve been at school.’”

He took a gap year after finishing high school, traveling to Nepal to offer a form of drama therapy at a rehabilitation clinic for girls who had been trafficked and boys who were living on the streets. “It was a shock, because I hadn’t really been told what I was doing, except working with children, and I expected them to be eight to twelve years old,” he says. “It turned out that they were eighteen to twenty- one, and I was eighteen, so the first couple of months were terrifying.”
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