 Liam Neeson's acting career took off relatively late. But well into
middle-age, his commanding physical presence means he is still credible in
action roles, and he is able to emanate a complex, enigmatic interior quality
that fits both heroes and villains.
He was born William John Neeson on 7 June 1952 into a working-class Catholic
family in the predominantly Protestant region of County Antrim, Northern
Ireland. Aged nine, he began boxing lessons and later became a heavyweight youth
champion, acquiring a broken nose in the process.
He briefly studied maths, physics and geology at university, then took
teacher training. But he maintained an interest in amateur dramatics which had
began at school. In 1976 he joined the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, moving to
Dublin's prestigious Abbey Theatre in 1978. Here he was spotted by John Boorman,
who gave him his first significant film role, as King Arthur's knight Sir Gawain
in Excalibur (1981).
Moving to London, he played supporting characters in films and television
mini-series, notably two action-adventures, Krull (d. Peter Yates, 1983) and The
Bounty (US/UK, d. Roger Donaldson, 1984), as well as the three-part adaptation
of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance (Channel 4, 1985) and its
two-part sequel, Hold the Dream (1986).
Larger and varied roles followed. He played clerics, in Lamb (d. Colin Gregg,
1985), as a priest who loses his vocation and in The Mission (d. Roland Joffé,
1986), as a Jesuit in South America; virile lovers in The Innocent (d. John
Mackenzie, 1985), Duet For One (US, 1986) and the controversial custody drama
The Good Mother (US, 1988); and murder suspects in Suspect (US, d. Peter Yates,
1987) and Dead Pool (US, 1988). Darkman (US, 1990) cast Neeson in the lead, as a
disfigured scientist, and provided him with his biggest hit so far.
Continuing to work in both Britain and America, he drew on his boxing
experience to play a bare-knuckle fighter in The Big Man (d. David Leland, 1990)
and was a disgraced policeman turned private detective in Under Suspicion (d.
Simon Moore, 1991). 1992 was a landmark year. He appeared in Woody Allen's
acclaimed Husbands and Wives (US) and starred on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's
Anna Christie, winning both a Tony award, and the heart of his co-star, Natasha
Richardson. They married two years later, producing two sons (Richardson died in
2009 in a skiing accident).
Impressed by seeing Neeson in Anna Christie, Steven Spielberg offered him the
most important role of his career to date: the playboy industrialist who saves
thousands of Jewish lives during the Second World War in Schindler's List (US,
1994). Neeson was Oscar-nominated for a subtle performance which captured
Schindler's extraordinary, puzzling mix of charisma, courage and venality.
He starred opposite Jodie Foster in Nell (US, d. Michael Apted, 1994), a
drama about a 'wild child'; was the voice of Hitler in the three-part
documentary 1914-1918 (BBC, 1996); and played a sculptor whose son is accused of
murder in Before and After (US, 1996).
Neeson also established himself as a romantic rebel-hero in three films with
different historical backdrops: 18th century Scotland in Rob Roy (US, d. Michael
Caton-Jones, 1995), early 20th century Ireland in Michael Collins (US/UK, d.
Neil Jordan, 1996) and revolutionary France in Les Misérables (US, 1998).
George Lucas cast him as a Jedi Knight in The Phantom Menace (US, 1999),
ushering in a long series of action-adventure films, including K-19: The
Widowmaker (US/Germany/UK, d. Kathryn Bigelow, 2002), Kingdom of Heaven (US/UK,
d. Ridley Scott, 2005), as the hero's mentor-turned-nemesis in Batman Begins
(UK/US, d. Christopher Nolan, 2005), Taken (France, 2008), The A-Team (US/UK, d.
Joe Carnahan, 2010), The Grey (d. Carnahan, 2012), Wrath of the Titans (US,
2012) and Battleship (US, 2012).
But he continued to take on more complex dramatic roles too: a creepy
mortician in After.Life (US, 2009), an equally sinister psychologist in The
Haunting (US, 1999), and a more benign one in the critically lauded Kinsey
(Germany/US/UK, d. Bill Condon, 2004), about the American sex researcher; an
errant priest in Breakfast on Pluto (UK/Eire, d. Neil Jordan, 2005); a cuckolded
husband in The Other Man (UK/US, d. Richard Eyre, 2008) and an adulterous one in
Chloe (France/UK/Canada, d. Atom Egoyan, 2009). In Five Minutes of Heaven (BBC,
tx. 5/4/2009), based on a true story, Neeson's Protestant hit-man confronts the
brother of a man he killed over 30 years ago.
In between there were ensemble pieces such as Gangs of New York (US, 2002)
and Love Actually (UK/US, d. Richard Curtis, 2003), and some more voice-over
work, notably as Aslan in three films of CS Lewis's The Narnia Chronicles (US, ,
2005 and 2008, and d. Michael Apted, 2010) and in the English-language version
of Ponyo (Japan/US, 2008).
Sheila Johnston
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FILM & TV CREDITS
