1994's The Lion King remains a beloved classic. It spawned multiple direct-to-video follow-ups, not to mention a live-action retelling and prequel. Back to that original movie, and it introduced one of Disney's best villains in Jeremy Irons' Scar, the brother of James Earl Jones' Mufasa.
Scar traumatised a whole generation of kids—"Long live the king"—and was brought to life perfectly by the British actor. At the time, animation was new to Irons, and in a video looking back at some of his most iconic roles, he admitted that he didn't know what to expect from the process.
Explaining that "I assumed that I would see a screen with a lion doing that, and I’d have to try to make my mouth do this, what his mouth was doing," Irons remembered them essentially creating the character of Scar during that process. As a result, he had no idea what the villain would look like until he attended the premiere.
Irons says he was "really upset" upon watching the movie because of how "muscular and wonderful" Musafa looked compared to Scar, who was "mangy looking" with a "terrible tail and terrible mane."
"Is that what they saw when they were [sketching me]?" he said of his thoughts at the time, but acknowledged that it obviously wasn't the case. Things only got worse for Irons when he saw how happy the audience was when Scar was killed. Despite that, Irons still looks back on the experience in a positive light, and revealed that Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg later told him that Scar was a "big part" of The Lion King's success.
Alas, that didn't lead to any sort of bonus! "Jeffrey Katzenberg called me at the house I was staying in Italy and said, 'The Lion King is a huge success and a big part of that is your character' And I was very pleased and hoped that I’d get something in the post as a thank you because I remember, who played Mrs. Doubtfire—Robin Williams. That’s right. Robin did work for Disney. Now Disney don’t pay very much money. I mean, they don’t."
"And Robin called them up and said, after Mrs. Doubtfire, I’ve made a fortune for your company and you paid me a tiny fee. And in the post, he got a Picasso," Irons revealed. "I hoped maybe Jeffrey would put sand in his pocket. But he didn’t. Anyway, they were very pleased with me. But no, I didn’t get a Picasso."
You can hear more from Irons on his experience working on The Lion King in the player below.