[caption id="attachment_96879" align="alignright" width="255"] (Mark Cuthbert/ Getty Images)[/caption]

British actor Jeremy Irons has finally tried to make amends for suggesting same-sex marriage could lead to sons marrying their fathers.

On Monday, the Borgias star appeared on the UK talk show Hardtalk and admitted that maybe he should stick to letting people write lines for him: "I felt I should have buttoned my lip—I was just flying a kite,” Irons opined. "I didn’t have any opinion about gay marriage…I don’t actually have much opinion about heterosexual marriage, except I possibly think it might protect children and make it easier for children, that’s why I married my wife.”

The lucky lady Irons is referring to is actress Sinead Cusack.

But even as he tried to step away from his earlier, insulting comments, the actor dug himself in deeper: "I mean marriage is about procreation, really that’s how historically it has always been," Irons said. "But I’m actually very badly informed. I don’t know the difference between a [civil] partnership... and marriage, which the government has just voted on.”

Um, Jeremy, how about working on that buttoning-your-lip thing?