Liam Neeson life and biography

Liam John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an Irish actor, who has been nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey, and the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia film series. He has also starred in several other blockbusters, including The Dead Pool, Darkman, Rob Roy, Kingdom of Heaven, Batman Begins, Taken and Love, Actually. He will play John "Hannibal" Smith in the upcoming 2010 A-Team movie.

He was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, and educated there and at Queen's University Belfast. He moved to Dublin after university to further his acting career, joining the renowned Abbey Theatre. In the early 1990s, he moved again to America, where the wide acclaim for his performance in Schindler's List led to more high-profile work. He is widowed and lives in New York with his two sons.

Career

After leaving the university, Neeson returned to Ballymena and worked in a variety of casual jobs, from fork-lift operator at Guinness to truck driver. He also worked at a teacher-training college in Newcastle for two years before again returning to his home-town. Neeson would get his first film experience in 1978, playing Jesus Christ and Evangelist in the religious film, Pilgrim's Progress directed by Ken Anderson. Following a bet from co-workers at the architects' office where he worked, Neeson successfully auditioned at the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast, appearing in successful adaptations of plays such as Brian Friel's Translations. After two years there, Neeson moved to Dublin in 1978 after he was offered a part in a production at the Project Arts Centre. The play was Ron Hutchinson's "Says I, Says He", a drama about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Neeson acted in several other Project productions and joined the Abbey Theatre in 1978. In 1980, film-maker John Boorman saw him on stage, acting as Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men, and offered him the part of Sir Gawain in the upcoming Arthurian movie, Excalibur. After Excalibur, Neeson moved to London, where he continued working on stage, small budget movies and TV series. He lived with the actress Helen Mirren at this time, whom he met working on Excalibur. Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five films; most notably alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in 1984's The Bounty and Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons in 1986's The Mission.

In 1987, Neeson made a conscious decision to move to Hollywood in order to star in high-profile roles. That year, he starred alongside Cher and Dennis Quaid in Suspect. The role brought Neeson critical applause, but it was 1990's Darkman that would bring his name to public attention. Although the film was successful, Neeson's following years would not give him the same recognition. In 1993, he joined Ellis Island co-star and future wife Natasha Richardson in the Broadway play Anna Christie. (They also worked together in Nell, released the following year.) Director Steven Spielberg, impressed by his performance, offered him the coveted role of Oskar Schindler in the film about the Holocaust, Schindler's List. His critically acclaimed performance later earned him a nomination for a Best Actor Oscar; however, the award went to Tom Hanks for his performance in Philadelphia. Neeson also garnered BAFTA and Golden Globes nominations for Schindler's List.

Schindler's List established Neeson as a widely sought after leading actor. He later starred in period pieces Rob Roy (1995) and Michael Collins (1996), the latter earning him another Golden Globe nomination and a win for Best Starring Role at the Venice Film Festival. Neeson went on to star as Jean Valjean in the 1998 adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables and in The Haunting (1999) as Dr. David Marrow.

Neeson narrated the 2001 documentaries Journey Into Amazing Caves and The Endurance: Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. After being nominated for a Tony Award for his role opposite Laura Linney in The Crucible, Neeson teamed up with Harrison Ford in Kathryn Bigelow's submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) as Captain Mikhail Polenin and appeared in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Gleeson, Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis). He also played a recently widowed writer in Richard Curtis' ensemble comedy Love Actually (2003). His role as Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey again put Neeson up for nomination for a Golden Globe Award but he lost out to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Aviator. In 2004, Neeson hosted an episode of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live. He starred as a redneck trucker, Marlon Weaver, in an "Appalachian Emergency Room" sketch and a hippie in a one-off sketch about two stoners (the other played by Amy Poehler) who attempt to borrow a police dog in order to find their lost stash of marijuana. Despite vowing not to play any characters who were Irish stereotypes, Neeson did play a stereotypically Irish man named Lorken McArdle in the home makeover show parody "You Call This A House, Do Ya?" In 2005, Neeson played Godfrey of Ibelin in Ridley Scott's epic adventure Kingdom of Heaven, Ra's al Ghul, one of the main villains in Batman Begins, and as Father Bernard in Neil Jordan's adaptation of Patrick McCabe's novel, Breakfast on Pluto. Also in 2005, he voiced the role of a kindly priest on The Simpsons, who converted Bart and Homer to Catholicism. That same year, he gave his voice to the lion Aslan in the blockbuster fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A year later, he narrated the documentary Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity.

In 2007, Neeson starred in the American Civil War epic Seraphim Falls alongside Pierce Brosnan and Anjelica Huston. He is also set to star as Abraham Lincoln in a film directed by Steven Spielberg. In preparation for the role, Neeson visited Washington, D.C., Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln lived prior to being elected, and read Lincoln's personal letters. He also visited Ford's Theatre, where the President was shot. He again gave his voice to Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008). Neeson's voice is featured in the video game, Fallout 3 as the main character's father, James. The executive producer of the game, Todd Howard, said "This role was written with Liam in mind, and provides the dramatic tone for the entire game".

In the director's commentary of the 2007 Transformers DVD, Michael Bay said that he had told the animators to seek inspiration from Liam Neeson in creating Optimus Prime's body language.

Neeson appeared as Alistair Little in the BBC Northern Ireland/Big Fish Films television drama Five Minutes of Heaven, which tells the true story of a young Protestant man convicted of murdering a Catholic boy during The Troubles.

He starred in the action movie Taken in 2008, which was a French film also starring Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace. It is based on a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and was directed by Pierre Morel. Neeson plays a retired Central Intelligence Agency operative from their elite Special Activities Division who sets about tracking down his teenage daughter after she is kidnapped for sexual slavery while travelling in Europe. Taken was a huge worldwide box office hit, grossing $223,882,658 worldwide making over $200,000,000 its initial budget.

Neeson has wrapped filming the psychological thriller After.Life with Christina Ricci and Justin Long. He also provided a voice for Hayao Miyazaki's anime film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which received an August 2009 release. In 2010, Neeson played the Greek God Zeus in the remake of the 1981 film, Clash of the Titans. Neeson also starred in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. He will also take on the part of John "Hannibal" Smith in a spin-off movie from the TV series The A Team. In 2010 Neeson will also voice the character Aslan once again in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

He has played several characters based on real people, including Schindler, Collins, and Kinsey, and is set to play Abraham Lincoln in a 2011 Steven Spielberg-directed biographical film based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Director Lee Daniels has confirmed that Neeson will play former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in Daniels' developing film Selma, which is about Martin Luther King Jr., Johnson, and the civil rights marches.

Personal life

Neeson was married to actress Natasha Richardson from 3 July 1994 until her death on 18 March 2009, when Richardson suffered a severe head injury sustained in a skiing accident at the Mont Tremblant Resort in the Canadian province of Quebec. Richardson and Neeson have two sons: Micheál (born 1995) and Daniel (born 1996). Neeson lives in Millbrook, New York. In August 2004 Neeson and his wife purchased an additional sixteen acres next to their estate.

Neeson was offered the 'Freedom of the Town of Ballymena' by Ballymena Borough Council, but because of objections made by members of the Democratic Unionist Party (the D.U.P.) regarding his comments that he had felt like a 'second-class citizen' growing up as a Catholic in the town, he declined the award, citing tensions. Neeson continues to practice the Catholic faith and has raised his children as Catholics. He has also expressed admiration for The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola.

He was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (an OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in her 1999 New Year's Honours List. The American Ireland Fund honoured Liam Neeson with their Performing Arts Award for the great distinction he has brought to Ireland at their 2008 Dinner Gala in New York.

In August 2009, Neeson stated on ABC's Good Morning America that he had been naturalised as a United States citizen.

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