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Liam Neeson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Liam Neeson | |
| Birth name | William John Neeson |
| Born | June 7, 1952 (age 54) Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland |
| Notable roles | Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Michael Collins in Michael Collins Henri Ducard/Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins |
William John 'Liam' Neeson, OBE, born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland on 7 June 1952, is an Oscar-nominated Irish actor.
Neeson was raised as a Roman Catholic in the predominantly Protestant and Loyalist town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland and later attended Queen's University of Belfast. However, he left the university without graduating.
He turned down the 'Freedom of the town of Ballymena' offered to him by Ballymena Borough Council, because of objections made by members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) about Neeson's comments that he had felt like a 'second-class citizen' growing up in the town.
At age nine, Neeson began boxing lessons at the All Saints Youth Club. Standing six feet four inches high, he became a youth champion before a blackout during one of his boxing matches forced him to withdraw from the ring.
Since July 3, 1994, Neeson has been married to actress Natasha Richardson. They have two sons, Michael Richard (born 1995) and Daniel Jack (born 1996). The family home is in exurban Millbrook, New York.
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High-profile appearances include the lead roles in Darkman, Schindler's List, Kinsey, Michael Collins, Jean Valjean in the 1998 adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: the Phantom Menace and Rob Roy. Other well-known supporting roles include voicing the lion Aslan in the blockbuster fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as Dr. Lovell in Nell, Godfrey of Ibelin in Kingdom of Heaven and Ra's al Ghul (under the guise of Henri Ducard) in Batman Begins. He also has one of the main roles in K-19: The Widowmaker as Capt. Mikhail Polenin, and he has a role as Daniel, a man who just lost his wife and has to take care of his stepson that his wife Joanna left him with Love Actually. Several of these characters are mentors to the main character who die at some point in the film. He has also voiced the role of a kindly priest on The Simpsons who converted Bart and Homer to Catholicism. When he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2004, he played an angry Irishman in the home makeover parody "You Call This A House, Do Ya?" (despite that in the monologue, he stated he wouldn't play Irish stereotypes) and (very convincingly) played an aging hippie alongside castmember Amy Poehler trying to borrow a police dog so he can find where he put his "stash".
His performance as Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List earned him very wide acclaim as well as an Academy Award nomination in 1993, but the award went to Tom Hanks for his performance in Philadelphia.
As of 2006, Neeson's next film appearance will be in the American Civil War epic Seraphim Falls with Pierce Brosnan and Angelica Huston. He is also set to star as Abraham Lincoln in a film directed by Steven Spielberg.
Neeson was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in her 1999 New Year's Honours List.
- One of Neeson's first roles was as The Evangelist in the 1979 adaptation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
- Liam Neeson's favourite Christmas song is "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, according to a questionnaire in the Love Actually script book (UK).
- In 1989 at the end of the PBS ID, Liam's voiceover says "This is PBS."
- Has dated actresses Helen Mirren, Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Barbara Streisand and singer Sinéad O'Connor. Supermodel Janice Dickinson also claims to be one of Liam's ex-lovers. [1]
- Is 6'4" tall. Because of this he cost the filmmakers an additional $150,000 in set design in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
- He had an uncredited vocal appearance in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, in the form of reused audio from The Phantom Menace. He had been originally scheduled for an appearance as a "Force Ghost", but his injury from a motorcycle accident prevented this.
- He appears to be a practitioner of the Keysi Fighting Method (See here).
- Liam Neeson at the Internet Movie Database
- Liam Neeson at the Internet Broadway Database
- The Liam Neeson Fansite, last updated in 2003
Categories: Articles lacking sources from March 2007 | All articles lacking sources | 1952 births | Living people | Alumni of Queen's University Belfast | Irish film actors | British film actors | Narnia film cast members | People from County Antrim | Northern Irish actors | Northern Irish Roman Catholics | Officers of the Order of the British Empire | Redgrave family