by Jack Tewksbury For forty years the HFPA has recorded interviews with famous and celebrated actors, actresses and filmmakers. The world’s largest collection of its kind — over 10,000 interviews — is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Library. The audios are fascinating. Below is an excerpt: twenty years ago, promoting director David Cronenberg’s M.Butterfly, two-time Golden Globe winner Jeremy Irons reflected on the complex issue of gender, desire and attraction.

“I was  very interested  in doing M. Butterfly not  only  because  I wanted  to  work again  with David Cronenberg , who directed  Dead  Ringers  but,  more so, I was  fascinated  with  the idea  that  we  turn  the  object of our desire  into  whatever  we  want  it  to  be. Many  women  do  that  constantly,  and  it’s  a  consistent mistake  they  make.  Now,  carry  that  to  an  extreme,  and you  will  wish  to  see  a  woman  when,  in  fact,  it’s  a man. Another  thing  that  interested  me  was  the  question  of   Gay  Liberation,  which  has  always  been  a  polarized  one. You’re  gay  or  you’re  straight.  I’ve  always  believed  that between  those  two  there’s  a  whole  lot  of  gray. Maybe one loves  a  woman  for  the  man  in  her, or  a  woman  loves  a man  because  he  has  an  area  of  femininity. Instead, it  is all geared  to  what  society  expects  and  what religion  tells us. We have to say  we’re  either  gay  or  straight rather  than  that  we’re  attracted  to  that  person  who  happens  to  be  a  man  or  happens  to  be  a  woman. I  like  his or her  body, I  find  him  or  her  attractive, I  like  his  or  her  mind. For  me, personally, because of  the way  I’ve been  brought  up,  if  that  happens  to  be  a  man–and  I  suppose  about  three times  in  my life I  have  met  a  man  I  think is wonderful  if  I  were  gay–I’d  fall  in  love. But  even  that says  if I  were  gay. I  think  it’s  put  there  by  society. The Greeks  didn’t  have that  problem  two  thousand  years ago.They  just loved  a  person  and  if  happened  to  be a  man it  was a  man.  If  it  happened  to  be  a  woman, it  was  a  woman. That’s  an  area  I’m  interested  in,  and  I  think  the  film explores  it  to  a large  extent.”