Max Irons (left to right), Sam Claflin and Holliday Grainger star in “The Riot Club,” premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Hook Publicity

TORONTO - Jeremy Irons is one of the most celebrated British actors of his generation, the star of classic films including "The Mission" and "Reversal of Fortune," for which he won an Oscar.

But when his son Max decided to go into acting, Irons played the part of practical father, warning him it was an unstable career choice.

"He didn't persuade me," the younger Irons, 28, said in a weekend interview at the Toronto International Film Festival. "He reminded me how difficult it was and nothing comes easily and it's very unpredictable."

Irons stars in "The Riot Club," a scathing examination of the British class system from director Lone Scherfig ("An Education"). He plays one of two young men inducted into a secret elite society at Oxford University. His character, Miles, is at first seduced by the glamour and the exclusivity of the Riot Club. But he's left to question his choices when tensions reach a breaking point during a night of heavy partying.

There are parallels between the actor and his character: Irons himself went to a preparatory school in Oxford as a child and led a comfortable life in England. But Irons said his father and mother, actress Sinead Cusack, did their best to shield him from the Hollywood bubble.

"Thankfully, they kept me away. He didn't take me to set or to parties, none of that. They gave me a very normal childhood, thank God," he said.

He said it took a while for him to catch the acting bug, and that his career choice was probably partly informed by the plays he saw as a child.

"I was dragged to theatre from about three onwards. 'What are we going to see tonight? "Macbeth."' Ugh. Shoot me," he said with a chuckle. "And we had these conversations about movies and watching movies and watching a particular type of movie, so that all goes in."

But he suffered from dyslexia as a child so that "really screwed up" his ability to read for auditions, he said. When he was 16, he memorized his lines for a play aloud with a friend. The starring role in Neil LaBute's "A Gaggle of Saints" hooked him, he said.

Irons appeared in young adult films including "Red Riding Hood," "The White Queen" and "The Host" before landing "The Riot Club," which also stars up-and-coming English actors Holliday Grainger and Sam Claflin. His next project is Christopher Nolan's "The Keys to the Street," a psychological thriller starring Tim Roth and Gemma Arterton.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sept. 14.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014