Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an actor from Northern Ireland. In 1976, he joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film, Excalibur. Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five films; most notably alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in The Bountyand Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons in The Mission. He landed a leading role alongside Patrick Swayze in Next of Kin...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth7 June 1952
CityBallymena, Northern Ireland
CountryIreland
No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice.
I don't think for this generation, but for my generation and my father's generation, men had difficulty in accessing emotion and then being able to talk about it.
Well, from an acting point of view, I bear no relation, I don't look like Alfred Kinsey at all, but I thought somewhere in my artist's soul, my actor's soul, I could capture something of the spirit of the man.
Well, I think they're all basically the same story. Every culture in the world has them. When you strip it down and analyze it, it's the young man or girl who goes through a trial or ordeal and hits a very low ebb but manages to get guidance from a Merlin type figure.
If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely.
Men fear most what they cannot see.
I'm not supposed to say anything but let's face it, Jedi knights never die.
It's a simple story, yet with all the complexities of myth. The technology was so understated. I thought he (George Lucas) was an amazing director who had created this totally believable world.
It was quite an intense time in Belfast in 1977 and I remember going to see it in the cinema. It was a very, very dicey area of Belfast. And the cinema was packed. In fact, I had never seen a cinema packed in my life before that -- to see this Episode I. Not Episode I at that time. It was Episode IV. And it was unique. We all got lost in this story for two hours and came back out into the harsh reality of life in Belfast.
Before 'Schindler's List,' I wouldn't have believed movies had a lot of power for social change.
I was very slow in maths, geometry I actually enjoyed.
I have often found that no matter where I meet people in the world, there is a path that leads back to Queen's.
I offer my performance as prayer for someone I've worked with as an actor or someone who has died. The image that comes into my head as I walk to the stage, I offer that performance up for that person.
I'd like to play Ian Paisley, actually. I'd need building up, though he's very frail now.