Jeremy Irons

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).

Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy, the daughter of American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, who was a U.S. serviceman stationed in Italy. She grew up as one of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado and was raised in the Mormon religion, although her family left the church after Adams' parents divorced when she was 11 years old. Throughout her years at Douglas County High School, she sang in the school choir and trained as an apprentice at a local dance company with ambitions of becoming a ballerina. However, after graduating from high school, she decided that she was "never going to be that good [at ballet], no matter how hard she worked" and entered musical theater, which she found was "much better suited to her personality".

Ingmar Bergman, the “poet with the camera” who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.

Critics called Mr. Bergman one of the directors — the others being Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa — who dominated the world of serious film making in the second half of the 20th century.

He moved from the comic romp of lovers in “Smiles of a Summer Night” to the Crusader’s search for God in “The Seventh Seal,” and from the gripping portrayal of fatal illness in “Cries and Whispers” to the alternately humorous and horrifying depiction of family life in “Fanny and Alexander.”