American postcard by Fotofolio, no. F831. Photo: Herb Ritts. Caption: Liam Neeson, Scotland, 1994.
French postcard for the film Les Misérables (Bille August, 1998), starring Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean, Geoffrey Rush as Javert, Uma Thurman as Fantine, and Claire Danes as Cosette. The film was a British-American-German coproduction.
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-017. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-039. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
Final breakthrough and international recognition
William John 'Liam' Neeson was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland in 1952. He was the third of four children of Katherine (Brown), a cook, and Bernard Neeson, a school caretaker. During his school years, he regularly performed in school plays. In his youth, Neeson was also very active in sports and won the Northern Ireland champion title in boxing. It also earned him a broken nose, to which he owes his characteristic nose shape.
He originally wanted to become a teacher and studied mathematics, physics, computer science and drama at Queen's University Belfast. However, he dropped out and worked as a forklift driver in a Guinness brewery, among other jobs. In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players' Theatre group in Belfast, where he made his stage debut in Joseph Plunkett's drama 'The Risen People'. He made his film debut as an Evangelist in Pilgrim's Progress (Ken Anderson, 1978).
That year he moved to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin where John Boorman saw him play the role of Lennie in John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' (1980). Boorman subsequently hired him to play the role of the knight Gawain in the fantasy epic Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981) starring Nigel Terry and Helen Mirren.
From then on Liam Neeson appeared in numerous films, always in supporting roles alongside well-known stars, such as in The Bounty (Roger Donaldson, 1984) alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, in Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986) alongside Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro, and in Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992) alongside Woody Allen, Blythe Danner and Judy Davis. Neeson played the lead in the cult favourite Darkman (1990), directed by Sam Raimi.
He gained fame for the role of the German industrialist Oskar Schindler in the Holocaust film Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1994). Schindler saved the lives of around 1200 Jews in the Third Reich by employing them in his factory. Neeson earned great praise from critics for his portrayal. He achieved his final breakthrough and gained international recognition with nominations for the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor.
Also in 1993, he made his Broadway debut with a Tony-nominated performance in 'Anna Christie', in which he co-starred with his future wife Natasha Richardson. The next year, the two also starred opposite Jodie Foster in Nell (Michael Apted, 1994), and were married in July of that year.
British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 8826.
British double card by Danilo, London, no. SW039. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-016. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
A surprise box-office hit, making almost $200 million more than its budget
Soon Liam Neeson was solidified as one of Hollywood's top leading men. He took on the role of 18th-century Scottish folk hero Robert Roy MacGregor in Rob Roy (Michael Caton-Jones, 1995) and that of Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary leader, in Michael Collins (Neil Jordan, 1996). He played Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (Bille August, 1998) based on the novel by Victor Hugo.
In 1999 he became the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the main roles in Star Wars: Episode I - The Dark Menace (George Lucas, 1999). He also appeared in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002), and the romantic comedy Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003). In 2004, he portrayed the US sex researcher Alfred Charles Kinsey in Kinsey (Bill Condon, 2004). He starred as a crusader in the historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005).
Neeson then appeared in the first part of The Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005), and in the third part, The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012), in which he portrayed Batman's mentor and later antagonist Ra's al Ghul. In 2008 he played the role of retired CIA agent Bryan Mills in Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008) also starring Famke Janssen. Taken was a surprise box-office hit, grossing $223.9 million worldwide.
From then on, he regularly portrayed action heroes. Neeson continued the role of Bryan Mills in the sequels Taken 2 (Olivier Megaton, 2012) and Taken 3 (Olivier Megaton, 2014). He played Zeus in Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier, 2010), another huge box-office hit, grossing $475 million worldwide, and returned as Zeus in the sequel Wrath of the Titans (Jonathan Liebesman, 2012), starring Sam Worthington. He then played John 'Hannibal' Smith in the spin-off of the legendary series, The A-Team - The Movie (Joe Carnahan, 2010).
In 2011, Neeson starred in the German-British-American action-thriller Unknown (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2011). This film led to a collaboration between Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra on a series of similar action films including Non-Stop (2014), Run All Night (2015) and The Commuter (2018). In 2016, he played the role of American General Douglas MacArthur in the South Korean film Operation Chromite (John H. Lee, 2016). This is the film version of the landing at Incheon, which initiated a turning point in the Korean War through MacArthur. Other action films followed in which Neeson took the leading role.
He appeared three more times as Qui-Gon Jinn: his voice was heard in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019), he starred in an episode of the TV Mini-Series Obi-Wan Kenobi (Deborah Chow, 2022) starring Ewan McGregor, and lent his voice again in an episode of the anthology series Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (Saul Ruiz, a.o., 2022). His total output for film and television includes more than 140 productions.
A native of Northern Ireland, Liam Neeson holds British and Irish citizenship and since 2009, he has also held United States citizenship. In 1999, Neeson was awarded an appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He is an ambassador for UNICEF in Ireland. Neeson married Natasha Richardson in 1994 and had two sons with her. Richardson died in 2009 after a skiing accident in Canada in which she suffered serious head injuries. Their son Micheál Richardson is also an actor.
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 490-002. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 490-003. Photo: Lucasfilm. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks and Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 490-005. Photo: Lucasfilm. Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Natalie Portman as Padmé in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 490-020. Photo: Lucasfilm. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
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