Jeremy Irons plays G. H. Hardy in The Man Who Knew Infinity, a biographical film based on the book by Robert Kanigel. Now available on Blu-ray and DVD, the film follows Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor mathematical genius from Madras, India. He gets enrolled in Cambridge University during World War I, thanks to Hardy, who also mentors him.
“I’ve read the book on which the film is based and was completely fascinated,” Irons tells Nerd Reactor. “I then read G.H. Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology, which is a collection of his lectures, and discovered that this dry subject which I’ve never had any aptitude for was in fact an art form, the pure mathematics where you feel those equations are out there in the ether, just waiting to be discovered by you.”
Hardy and Ramanujan have been very influential in the world of mathematics.
“From Hardy’s and especially Ramanujan’s discovery, which is still being unlocked today,” said Irons. “People are still working on those theories. I realized there was this whole world which I knew nothing about. It was absolutely fascinating. It didn’t mean I understood it, because I don’t. The mathematics part in the movie I had to act while not understanding what I was talking about.”
Since the subject can be like another world, Irons was able to relate to the mathematician thanks to their passion.
“What grabbed me was the passion these men had for this subject. That I could connect with because I have passion for my subject. The journey that I loved playing with Hardy was… here was a man, completely an introvert. He’d been a genius through school – through university – and probably had a particular sort of mind which didn’t allow him to have many social skills. He rarely looked people in the eye. Seeing this man become fascinated and enthralled, as he described romantically attached. Although I think he’s not using romantic the way that we tend to do. His relationship with Ramanujan and through mathematics gave his life a color and a brilliance for that period. To play a man so closed and so introverted, who slowly becomes attached through their shared passion, with this young Indian, from who apart from mathematics he has nothing in common. They’re worlds apart both in age and in nationality. That for me was the journey. That’s what I enjoy playing.”
from Nerd Reactor
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