Jeremy Irons remembers his first role with North-East director Ridley Scott was a port commercial, while co-star Eva Green noticed that Scott always has things under control. Both talk to Steve Pratt about creating the Moors versus Christians movie.

E circumstances were very different the last time Jeremy Irons worked with director Ridley Scott 20 years ago. The actor was being directed by the North-East born film-maker in a commercial for port. "I was playing Bertie Wooster," recalls Irons with a smile.

His reunion with Scott on the Crusades epic Kingdom Of Heaven wasn't a foregone conclusion. Finding a suitable role was difficult. "I got sent the script, I read it and thought, 'this is amazing'," recalls Irons. "A fantastic story at a very interesting period of history that related to today with a wonderful emotional centre as well as an epic scope." He liked that the subsidary characters were as well written as the leading roles. "I called Ridley's people and they said there was nothing in it for me, that the lead role was too young for me and a lot of the other parts had gone," he says. "I had a meeting with Ridley and said I'd play anything. He said, 'that's cast, that's cast'. I just saw the ship and said I wanted passage."

Irons emerged as Tiberias, military advisor to the Christian king Baldwin IV. He read up on the period and felt that Jerusalem in the 12th century must have been like Hong Kong ten years before it reverted to Chinese rule - a great place for Northern Europeans to live and work. "I can understand why you would go on a Crusade," he adds. "I could have lived out there quite happily in that period. I love horseriding, so a society based on that and being surrounded by that culture is wonderful."

The period may be different but he doesn't believe people change.

He welcomed the chance to live and breath in a different time in history. "One of the huge pluses of being an actor is that you can take emotional holidays from your own life. Because you're so used to it, it tends to be a little bit humdrum. You can go to 1160, living in this bubble of reality. I really love that element of immersing myself in a different environment."

Irons has done this quite a bit on screen of late, going back to the 1930s for Being Julia and 17th century Venice for Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice. He's also filmed an as-yet untitled Casanova project, playing a religious man. "He believes he is pope and hopes he is God, but is only a cardinal," he says.

He doesn't say whether the cardinal's costume was as comfortable as his knightly outfit in Kingdom Of Heaven. He was fortunate to have a little bit of a say in the design. "I asked them to give me a place for my cigarettes and a place where I can pee in a hurry, or even more than that because with Moroccan food you never know. I don't want to be stuck on a horse with the camera rolling and take half a day to get out of what I'm wearing.

"They designed something that was very workmanlike and worked on a horse. The cloak was very Arab. It kept the heat of the sun off me and for some strange reason when you pulled it round you it sent a cooling draught up your whole body. So I was very comfortable."

Both Irons and Eva Green, the French actress who plays the female lead in Kingdom Of Heaven, have been directed by the Italian Bernardo Bertolucci. He was in Stealing Heaven, she was in Bertolucci's most recent film The Dreamers.

The difference in the two director's styles was marked. "Bernardo is very Italian and very demonstrative and loving. On The Dreamers, we were like his children and he taught us a lot of things, to let it go and take advantage of the unexpected," says Green, currently the face of Emporio Armani's spring/summer campaign.

"Ridley is also a master, but he had a lot of pressure around him. He is very British. He can look quite reserved but everything is under control."

Green plays the king's married sister, princess Sibylla, whose love for blacksmith-turned-knight Balian adds a personal conflict to the Holy War raging around them. She had little time to think about the part as she was only hired a week before shooting began. So it was very stressful and exciting", she says. "I didn't have much time to prepare anything and at the beginning felt a little overwhelmed. I had to pinch myself every day to make sure I was alive."

Little is known about Sibylla and some of that was changed for the film anyway. Green based her character on the script rather than history, but talks of a queen who had to maintain a public mask.

As for acting opposite Orlando Bloom, she says that he'd put her at ease on the predominantly male set after one day of rehearsing together. "I think he's just a normal guy who can't quite cope with being a big star or with his huge female fan base. This role is good for him, he's turning from a young romantic lead into a rugged hero. From boy to man."

Published: 05/05/2005