Celebrity Biographies
Jeremy Irvine
Although he was quite unknown, Steven Spielberg has bet heavily on him by choosing him to play the boy who tames the leading horse in War Horse , as in his day he was also played by Christian Bale. But the young British actor is headed full gallop towards a bright future.
Born in 1990 in Gamlingay, a town in the British county of Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, Jeremy Smith –his real name– is the youngest of the three children of Chris, an engineer, and Bridget, a local politician. At the age of six he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, so he has to take insulin, but otherwise he was an ordinary boy, passionate about military history, who collected weapons from the world wars. At school he already participated in theatrical productions, so he was encouraged to study acting at the National Youth Theater and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
When he started acting in the theater he decided to use the stage name ‘Irvine’, which comes from his grandfather’s first name. She participated in productions of works such as “Dunsinane” with the Royal Shakespeare Company. They then recruited him to play one of the young leads in the Disney Channel series Life Bites .
Despite his inexperience in film, he was cast for War Horse , an adaptation of the novel by Michael Morpurgo . Nor did he expect that Steven Spielberg would choose him to play Albert Narracott, the boy who patiently teaches the leading horse, Joey, to plow the fields. After reading the script, Irvine was thrilled that his grandfather, who worked as a medic in the Great War, bought his horse in a similar way to his character’s father in the film. He still has the purchase receipt, and he paid the same amount that the horse costs in the film.
Since Irvine had no experience with horses, he had to receive horsemanship training. Keep good memories of the shoot. “Spielberg made me feel part of a big family,” says the actor.
Although it is a very choral film, there is no doubt that Warhorse has put Jeremy Irvine on the map. At the moment he is not doing badly, because he has starred with Dakota Fanning in the drama about a girl with leukemia Now is Good . He has also shot with Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter the new version of Charles Dickens ‘ Great Expectations , where he plays the orphan Pip.
Despite the glamor of the movie industry, where Irvine feels most at home is at home. “There’s nothing nicer than going back to my town, where people like my mother’s friends make fun of me. I prefer that to the madness of Hollywood,” she commented.