Interview: Liam Neeson

Stop what you’re doing right now, because we have some news that we think you might be interested in — Liam Neeson, the man himself tells us, likes to “get down and dirty a few times, a few nights a week.”

Don’t get too excited though — he’s talking about maintaining his fitness levels whilst making the action films for which he has become so ubiquitous over the last few years. So drag your minds out of the gutter, man fans.

Being an action hero is a pressurised situation, he says, and one where he needs to “keep his shit together.”

We can believe it — chasing villains around all day is something that is likely to take it out of a man. Although Neeson is quite good at it. One might wonder, since he always emerges triumphant from these battles, whether he ever has in fact lost a game of hide and seek?

We ask him this question, and his face registers a moment of panic. And then this happens:

“Hide and seek? (Silence.) I used to play it a lot with my sisters, as kids… (Pause.) I can’t really remember. (Long, long silence…)”

We might have expected flat out denial, or a strong admission that no, he’s Liam Neeson — of course he never loses a game of hide and seek. It’s shocking that we’d even suggest it.

But we sense further hesitation, so voice our feelings that he must always win — surely?

His feelings about hide and seek are alarmingly clear: “No,” he says. “No. No.”

So, can we really have reached the following conclusion — that Liam Neeson, action hero, liberator of abducted women, master of subterfuge and one-time contender for 007 (yeah, more of that below) — the actual Liam Neeson — could he be actually be… kind of awkward? Or actually just rubbish at deception, in real life?

Either way, the hide and seek conversation appears to have made him uncomfortable — which is a weird situation and one we never expected that we’d find ourselves in. Moving on…

Is it true that he was considered for James Bond — or was that just a vicious rumour?

And this might just be where it gets interesting, because yes — yes he was. And why didn’t it happen, might we ask?

“I was heavily courted,” he says, “let’s put it that way. As some other actors were… it was after Schindler’s List; Schindler’s List was 20 years ago so it’s got to be 18, 19 years ago.”

He goes on, after a long pause: “My wife to be (Natasha Richardson) said, “If you play James Bond we’re not getting married. And I had to take that on board because I did want to marry her.”

Why on earth would she not want to be married to James Bond, we wonder…?

“Because,” he says, “I’d be working with all these supermodels.”

Fair point… we suppose.

He adds: “They were courting other people and Pierce is a buddy of mine; I was thrilled he got it.”

Are there any other roles that he wished he’d taken over the years, that he might have missed out on?

It doesn’t seem so, although he does name check “the Robert Redford film, All is Lost… that’s the only thing I’ve seen recently where I’ve thought, I would’ve loved to have played that part. Terrific, terrific film. I got a little pang… it was jealousy, jealousy.”

Moving on, it’s probably time to talk about Non-Stop, the nightmare-in-the-sky thriller that sees Neeson on typical hero-form, tackling a blackmailing hacker somewhere between New York and London.

The film, in which he again teamed up with Unknown director Jaume Collet-Sera, is about to hit UK cinemas and Neeson is quick to wax lyrical about his working relationship with Sera: “I don’t want to be big-headed and say Astaire and Rogers,” he says, “but you know — when those two danced they were just like… they were joined at the hip.

“I feel something similar with Jaume.”

The conversation turns to improvisation within the scenes, something which Neeson says he doesn’t often find himself doing: “I’ve worked with actors recently where they’ve just gone, totally left script and just gone,” he admits. “And the director’s loving it and just keeps the camera rolling… I’ve got a note afterwards that says, “Liam — improvise.” I was fucking improvising, my improvisation was watching him, or watching her!”

Ok, ok — talking about anyone specifically there, Liam?

Predictably, he’s “not going to say — because they’re brilliant at it. Absolutely brilliant at it. Christ — am I supposed to compete with it? The script that the writer wrote, it’s pretty damn good! That’s what I want to say.”

One may get the impression that he’s slightly touchy about this — although when making tight thrillers, he says, it’s less of an issue because everything is deliberate and there’s less room to roam — which is maybe why they’re his favourite kind of project at the moment.

We have time for one more question, so, at the request of twitter, let’s throw in a curveball — when making Love Actually, did he prefer working with Colin Firth or Hugh Grant?

And suddenly we’ve given him another question he couldn’t possibly have prepared for, and we’re back to being the tiniest little bit awkward…

“I didn’t have any scenes with either of them,” he says, dashing entirely our visions of three of our favourite guilty pleasure actors hanging out backstage, comparing script notes and ordering takeaways. “My scenes were with Thomas Sangster, the kid, Emma, and that lovely supermodel… Claudia Schiffer.”

We feel ashamed that we hadn’t realised this, the amount of hours we’ve spent watching Love Actually, and we tell him so.

“I had no scenes with Colin at all,” he reiterates. Or with Hugh… HAHA.”

The HAHA is prominent. Clearly, that’s us told. Liam Neeson might as well have said, “You’re not getting a rise out of me, lady,” or, “Stop trying to make me incriminate myself amongst my peers,” or maybe, “Who is this girl, asking me questions about childhood games and fellow acting men?”

All good questions, Liam. Feel free to ask them, next time.

Non-Stop is released on 28th February. Look out for our review, published later this week.

Originally published at https://www.thenationalstudent.com.