Liam Neeson: Liam and the Force
Q: You've said that directors' egos are larger than actors' egos, and that directors are all fascists at heart.
A: I think their egos are huge. They just are. I have a love/hate thing with directors within myself.
Q: What are some great performances you've admired?
A: Anything with Spencer Tracy. Fonda. Bobby Duvall's stuff. I would watch him read a telephone directory. Tom Hanks. Walter Matthau. Philippe Noiret. Gerard Depardieu.
Q: You're also a fan of Steven Seagal's, aren't you?
A: Yeah. I saw him in some film a few years ago where he was playing a policeman in the Bronx and his partner had been killed. I really believed what he was doing. Very real.
Q: Let's go back to the time before you were an actor. How would you describe your parents?
A: Simple honest working people. My father worked as a custodian in a Catholic boys' school; my mother was a cook in a girls' grammar school for over 30 years.
Q: Did they encourage you to reach for the moon?
A: No, because it wasn't like, "Oh, you must break out of this." They just wanted us to be the best we were capable of. With a lot of emphasis on school--that was important to them.
Q: Did you have a nickname growing up?
A: No. Well, "Big Lad." I started to shoot up when I was 13.
Q: What music and films did you most enjoy growing up?
A: I listened to a lot of music, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. I saw a lot of films, double bills like Play Misty for Me with Sidney Lumet's The Offence. The next night it might be Dracula with Valley of the Dolls. Just a weird mix.
Q: What about going to dances, a big part of Irish social life?
A: That's a terrifying feeling, being pushed out by my mom to go to a parochial hall dance on Wednesday night. Guys along one side, girls on the other. Walking across the room was like 17 miles. Then to be turned down. And it wasn't, "No thanks," it was a frown and a turned head. Nothing said. Even now when I hear loud music, it reminds me of that time.
Q: The Irish have always seemed to be a sexually repressed people. Was it that way for you growing up?
A: That's a big thing you're asking. I can only answer from my upbringing, which was very Catholic. We didn't have sexual education. It was never really a big issue. There were other issues at stake--the whole civil rights thing in '69. For me, I was too busy boxing and doing plays to be thinking about dating. That's how I got my rocks off. I didn't smoke or drink.
Q: So you retained your innocence in secondary school?
A: I started [having sex] when I was 19 or 20 when I went to university.
Q: Where were you when your father died?
A: I was in Los Angeles, living in Venice Beach. This particular morning I woke up and there was a bird sitting outside the window. And I thought, "Oh, it's going to come in and fly around and bang up against the windows and shit all over the place and it's going to take forever to catch it." The bird came in, flew around the room three times, landed back on the window, and as I went over to open the window further for it to fly out, it just didn't move. And I swear to God, Larry, my father reared canaries and I just started thinking about him so strongly. That afternoon I got a call from my sister saying Dad had died in his sleep. I went home for the funeral and was talking to my middle sister, Bernadette, and she told me how she'd seen this pigeon with a damaged claw and she started thinking about my father. When she and I were telling this to my aunt, my father's sister, she said, "Oh yeah, yeah, yes, there's always a bird appears when a Neeson dies." She said it so matter-of-factly. That's the gospel truth.
Q: Seven years ago you said you wanted to see how far you could take it, for the power it would give you to do what you really wanted. Do you feel you have achieved that power?
A: I guess I have. A lot of these things I've said were before I became a father. In fathering, everything is put in its slot, including acting. Now it's, "You want me for this? Fine. You don't? I'm not going to lose a night's sleep." A few years ago it would have been, "Why does he not want me?"
Q: Do you keep a journal?
A: I don't. I tried to keep one on a film a few years ago--did it for about a week, and then I read it back. It was like: "Wasn't called onto the set until 11." "Jessica has just arrived, she looks very nice." "Didn't eat lunch today." It was the most boring, bland shit. I had to stop it.
Q: What's an embarrassing thing that's happened to you?
A: A couple of years ago, we were walking down a corridor in a hotel and a lady stopped me and asked if she could introduce me to her husband, who had landed on the Normandy beaches during World War II. They said how much they loved my work, and the woman asked me for an autograph and I signed it. Then she said, "When you were doing The English Patient, was it very hard?" Ralph [Fiennes] is a very good friend of mine, I couldn't wait to tell him. It was very embarrassing, but they were so sweet, these people.
Q: What's your serious issue?
A: UNICEF. I'm an ambassador for Ireland, which I take seriously. We launched this thing on Aer Lingus, where you can take loose currency from other countries and put it in a UNICEF envelope. We've gathered 360,000 pounds so far.
Q: Do you envision your own death?
A: Lately I have. Maybe because I'm in the middle of life, and I'm a father.
Q: After Michael Collins you had surgery to remove a blockage in your colon. How serious was that?
A: I was running four miles every day, doing my sit-ups, my push-ups. Didn't drink,
didn't smoke. I had a great surgeon at the Brotman Medical Center who saved my life. And it only cost me two grand. Now people say to me, "Next Thursday you're going to meet..." And I think, "Next Thursday?" That's 70,000 years away for me. Just take it a day at a time. I try to live that way.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Sandra Bullock for the April 99 issue of Movieline.
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