Jeremy Irons can be quite charming in real life but on screen something dark and unpleasant emerges - I noticed this years ago. (He also looks a lot like Boris Karloff which doesn't help.)
My contractor employer and compadre insists that James Mason would have done the character of Hannibal Lechter better than Anthony Hopkins did, anytime someone makes a Hannibal the cannibal reference-as a kid, he liked creepy nice guy characters...
Your insight and info are very interesting-living in the rural Southwest, I’ve never been within 500 miles of a “real” actor-Jeremy Irons does look like Boris Karloff, who was the personification of sinister and scary to me as a kid-if he was in a movie, I wanted to see it and be scared half to death...