Liam Neeson: Liam and the Force

Q: Do you understand why you're an actor?

A: No, I don't. It's something I question all the time.

Q: Did you have any preconceptions about this business before you got into it?

A: My ultimate aim was to be Iago for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Theater was what I wanted to do.

Q: How did doing Anna Christie onstage change your life, as your wife claims?

A: I was living in L.A. and had done this film, Leap of Faith, with Steve Martin. Steve was great and all the individual ingredients were wonderful, but it was just the most miserable time. I thought, I can't live here any more and do these films only to come away feeling so small. I had been in L.A. for five years. It was time to get back to my theatrical roots. Natasha and the producer had offered me Anna Christie, and every day we rehearsed it I thought, God, this is what the real work is about. So much better than some of these dip-shit films I was involved in. During the play, Steven Spielberg asked, "Do you want to be my Oskar Schindler?" This was after I'd done the screen test and hadn't heard from him for weeks.

Q: You've said that every minute of making Schindler's List was precious. Why?

A: I'd have to put it on par with Michael Collins, which took us 14 years to make and was very dear to my heart. But with Schindler, I was aware that it isn't just a piece of entertainment. It was important.

Q: You've worked with both Lucas and Spielberg. Would you consider them geniuses?

A: Ah, geniuses. Mozart was a genius. Van Gogh. When I hear "genius" in our industry--like a "genius actor"--there's no such thing.

Q: What about playwrights?

A: Genius? Shakespeare and Chekhov.

Q: What are the last few books you've read?

A: I just finished A Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, which I liked, and I read Into Thin Air and the other [Jon] Krakauer book about the young boy who walks into the wilderness. I'm reading a book of poems by Seamus Heaney that I have in my bag all the time. And I still delve into the Holocaust stories.

Q: How do you see yourself?

A: My wife always describes me thus: "You always see the glass half empty. It's never half full." That pretty much captures what I think about myself.

Q: What do you think of the description of you in GQ: "He looks like an extremely handsome man who has been whacked in the face with a frying pan"?

A: God, was that written by a guy or a girl?

Q: Must have been a woman because you rarely speak to male journalists.

A: That's true.

Q: Would you agree that early on you were better known for the women you dated than the films you appeared in?

A: The press conjured this shit up.

Q: Is the British press worse than any other press?

A: The worst. And they continue to sink.

Q: You recently won an $85,000 suit against a British tabloid, which reported you and your wife were headed for a divorce. What made you go after them?

A: Because we were terribly hurt by it. We were in Italy at the time and came back to these urgent calls from our friends and family. My first thought was something had happened to the kids or to my mother.

Q: Did you sue just The Mirror or all the other papers that picked it up?

A: All of them.

Q: Joyce Carol Oates said, "Men have a far more difficult time simply living, existing, trying to measure up to the absurd standards of masculinity in our culture." Agree?

A: I do feel men are kind of lost at the moment because of the whole women's revolution, which wasn't a real revolution because we weren't included. Women's power is very prevalent at the moment and it's great, but men are really scared by it. They don't know how to cope with it. Men are still from that era of the strong, silent type who never cried and kept it all in, and that doesn't apply anymore, it's bullshit.

Q: Norman Mailer has said: "There isn't a man alive who doesn't have a profound animosity towards women." Is he right?

A: Oh God. Pretty devastating thing to say. Do I hate my mum? Is that the next thing?

Q: What do you envy in women?

A: Their openness. They're great at talking to each other. Two women can get together and talk about their periods. That's pretty intense. Guys aren't very open with each other. That has to do with the time when men were hunters, quietly making their kills, as the women were back in the cave saying, "He did what to ya? I don't believe it! Don't ever let him do that again."

Q: You've credited Helen Mirren with first introducing you to a sophisticated world. How important was she in your development?

A: Helen taught me there's more to life than meat, vegetables and potatoes on a plate. Literally, I had my first Chinese meal with her. I was with her in London and we went to meet some of her friends in a restaurant bar and there were all these beautiful English socialites chatting away and pulling the heads off shrimps. I'd never seen a shrimp before. I was filled with a feeling of total inadequacy. Helen showed me how to do it.

Q: Who's the most influential person in your life?

A: My wife.

Q: Are you appreciative that you didn't get too famous too fast?

A: I became an actor at the age of 22. When I did Schindler's List I was 40. So I wasn't a kid. I like to think I have my feet squarely on the ground.

Q: You've said that you can recognize a movie that's going to be a hit seven out of ten times. How can you tell?

A: I don't know where you read that. It's so not true. It's the opposite. I'm, like, minus seven out of ten.

Q: Do you still feel you have a love-hate relationship with the film business?

A: I do. I guess that's the perfect relationship.

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