Liam Neeson – Twenty years a star and still counting

                                                June 1999 By Philip Berk

He once attracted some of the world’s most desirable women including Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, and Barbra Streisand, but like a true Irish rover, he didn’t seem the type to ever settle down.

But then, one day, he met Natasha Richardson, when they did a play together, and things have never been the same.

Today he is the picture of domesticity.

Married and the father of two sons.

What was so special about Natasha? I once asked him.

“I’ve always been attracted to beauty and talent. And she’s kind of older beyond her years. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever met, both as a performer and as a human being.” (She’s eleven years younger than him.)

Now that he’s found the ideal partner, what he really needs is a protective publicist.

Known for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, he made international headlines recently  when he told Redbook magazine, “I’m getting out. I’m retiring from movies next year. I’m not happy doing it. I don’t want to do it anymore. Film is a director’s medium, it has nothing to do with actors. We are basically puppets walking around, hitting marks, saying lines. Producers earn all the money, and you get the sense they hate actors. The crews are treated like slaves.”

At his press conference for his latest, The Haunting, he is asked to explain himself and he hides his face in shame.

He suffered a similar embarrassment  a few years ago when he told the New York Times that he made Nell only for the money .

When asked if that was true, he told me, “I think it was a joke, really. But after Schindler’s List, I didn’t want to do something that required a lot of research. I just wanted to go in and say, ‘Here I am,’ do a slight American accent, and let whatever happens happen.” 

This time he is equally contrite.

“I had done two films back to back, I just missed my wife and kids, and while doing an interview for Star Wars (The Phantom Menace), a very sweet lady asked me, ‘What’s next Mr. Neeson?’ and I answered, ‘I’m not playing. I want to get out.’ And then somebody picked up the story, and it became gospel. It was just a silly, disgruntled remark by me. It’s not true, and I should have been more professional.”

What made his response doubly painful was that it could have been true.

After the poor notices he received for Star Wars (critics called his performance boring) and for playing  Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss both in London and New York, he might well have considered throwing in the towel.

Even The Haunting hasn’t fared well with critics, although it opened spectacularly in the States where it took in over $33 million its first weekend.

But now that early retirement is not an option,what will he be doing next?

“Natasha and I are going to do a film together in the near future; it’s  called Salem and it’s based on the novel by Patrick McGrath. We’re hoping Jonathan Demme will direct. We’ve also talked about  doing Anthony and Cleopatra on stage, but  maybe ten years down the line.”

Which does he find prefer, theatre or film?

“They’re different. For film you have to get your energy up thirty times a days. In fits and starts. For theatre just once between eight o’clock and ten thirty. It’s a different discipline.”

Is he able to relax between takes?

“As Henry Fonda put it,’Acting is about learning how to wait.”

Besides talking to the press, what makes him angry?

“I really get angry at the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Like when New York cab drivers try to cheat you out of 25 cents. That kind of thing annoys me. My wife always says, ‘Look at it this way. We’re going out in a taxi. You always end up paying for the meal anyway,’ which I do. I always go, ‘Yeah, come on, I’ll get this.’ But it’s the taxi driver that ‘s going to charge me 25 cents more that gets me angry. It’s stupid but it’s one of those things that really drives me to distraction.”

He could avoid that by living in Los Angeles.

Why live in New York? 

“Loads of reasons. There’s no where like it in the world. It’s a genuine melting pot where nobody gives a damn whether you’re an actor or a physicist or a carpenter. Unlike LA. where everything is geared to the movie industry. (Living in L.A.) gives people a false sense of importance and security, but New York is raw. It has a European temperament as well as an American temperament.”

Does he ride the subway?

“I use public transport occasionally. I walk down the street.”

And is he recognized wherever he goes?

“Not the way Tom Cruise would be.”

Did he ever meet (the late) John F. Kennedy Jr.?

“Yes I did. We worked out at the same gymnasium. I had a few words with him a few weeks ago.”

How did he react to his death?

“I was absolutely stunned. He was a big, wonderful specimen of a human being. Very, very fit. What can I say that the world hasn’t already said? I think everyone was stunned.”

Ironically it was an interview he did for Kennedy’s magazine George that landed him in trouble a third time.

Liam told the magazine that growing up Catholic in a predominantly Protestant community,  made him feel like  a second class citizen. 

The Ballymena Council were outraged and demanded a retraction, which he never gave.

Does he miss Ireland?

“I miss the scenery.”

Is his heart still there?

“No, because I left there in l980. But I still go back. I was in Dublin a few weeks ago”

Before the birth of his first son  four years ago, I asked him if he’d be willing to take time off to be with his children the way Natasha would have to?

“Certainly,” he answered, “because otherwise the years go on and suddenly there’s a baby who’s seven years of age, and you haven’t really seen him (or her) other than between movies.”

They now have two sons, Michael,4,and Daniel Jack,who’ll be three in August.

What kind of a father is he? 

“I’m particularly adept at play dough. And when I read to my kids, I fashion sound effects and  things like that, which they love.”

Born into a working class family, as a kid he knew the meaning of poverty.

“My mother was a cook in a girls’ grammar school, my father was caretaker of a boys’ primary school. I have three sisters, two of  them are teachers, and there’s a plethora of children, nieces and nephews.”

What made him to turn to acting?

“I actually studied physics at the University of Belfast and planned on a teaching career, but while waiting to take the exams, I applied to a small repertory company and got the job. Two years later I moved to Dublin where (director) John Boorman saw me in a play and cast me as Sir Gawain in Excalibur.

Since then he’s played a porn film director in Clint Eastwood’s The Dead Pool,  the disfigured hero in Darkman, a deaf mute in The Suspect, a painter accused of child molestation in The Good Mother, a bad Nazi in Shining Through , and of course the good Nazi in Schindler’s List.

That performance earned him an Academy Award nomination. 

After that he did Nell with Jodie Foster, Rob Roy with Jessica Lange, Before and After with Meryl Streep, and Michael Collins with Julia Roberts.

Not a bad resume!

As an actor, what are his fears?

“I’m not sure. But forgetting your lines while on stage can be absolute terror. It happened to me twice. I remember the first time, I was doing a play called Aristocrats by Brendan Behan in Belfast. I absolutely dried up on stage and turned to the actor I was with and asked him what the next line was. He was sitting reading the paper and he just went, ‘I don’t know.’ I remember looking down to the end of the hall and seeing the exit sign and thinking, if I jumped off stage I could be out that door in ten seconds. But then I realized the character I was playing was supposed to be drunk, so I drunkenly walked off stage, got hold of the script, found my place, and came back.

“That fear has never left me.”

In l988 he was struck down by an illness which left him close to death. For a man who prided himself on his health (he’s a vegetarian), it was the ultimate shock, and he still hasn’t recovered from it.

“I woke up in bed with the doctor looking me straight in the eye telling me that I had an abscess in my stomach and I was lucky to be alive. I was very fit at the time so it made me realize how each day, each moment is really important, so when agents pick up the phone and tell me you’ve got a meeting in three months, it’s like forget it. That’s three years away, you know.”

What about awards?

“It’s great to get accolades and have people recognize you and stuff, but you know something, it’s not a cure for cancer, and movies have never changed society. They’ve never changed the world. They make you think something within yourself, but they’re essentially entertainment. And I think if you start believing all the hype about yourself, that gets very, very dangerous, you know.  Very dangerous.”

Eight years ago when I  asked him what he would do if it all ended tomorrow, he prophetically  answered, “I can start a play in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on Monday. I feel sorry for these young actors, boys and girls who wouldn’t know a theatre if they passed it in the street. They think it’s all about money and prestige, but acting’s much richer than that.”

Hopefully he still feels that way.