‘IT CAN SEEM HARDER AND HARDER TO FUNCTION IN LONDON AS A HUMAN BEING’

Sharing a relatively unusual surname with a famous actor, and with whom he shares a profession, means that Max Irons faces that “Any relation?” gambit more than, say, Tom Hardy’s or Will Smith’s offspring ever will. “I get it all the time, when booking taxis and so on,” says Irons, whose father really needs no introduction and whose family on his mother’s side, all Cusacks, includes showbiz big-hitters including Sinéad (mother), Niamh and Sorcha (aunts), Pádraig (uncle), as well as Cyril and Maureen (grandparents).

But Max Irons is carving out a pretty impressive television, film and stage career of his own, and seems to take hurdles in his stride. His turn as the husband of Jewish refugee Maria Altmann in the historical drama Woman in Gold,