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Liam interviewed by BBC
Liam was interviewed by BBC. You can listen to it
here at the BBC Site. Transcript is behind the
cut. Thanks to Tomokoy for the link and to Sally and Kathy for the
transcript!
They mainly talk about Kinsey and in the end shortly what Liam felt about the fact that he did not get nominated for the Academy Awards.
They mainly talk about Kinsey and in the end shortly what Liam felt about the fact that he did not get nominated for the Academy Awards.
S. Mayo
Good afternoon, you’re listening to 5Live and I’m delighted to say
we’ve been joined by, well, if I’m honest, one of my favorite
actors. Here’s Liam Neeson. Hello,
sir!
Liam Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you very much!
Mayo It’s an absolute pleasure. And if I was there with you in the same room, I would have brought you, as I did last time, uh, a flask of BBC tea.
Liam Oh, oh, I remember it, yeah!
Mayo I remember you became addicted to that stuff.
Liam I, I love it, especially out of the white polystyrene cups, but I gave up caffeine a year ago. But I still drink tea.
Mayo Well, there, there’s … I don’t know what it is in BBC tea, but it is legendary. It is special. And I’m sorry I can’t provide you with any today. So, it’s good to talk to you. Now “Kinsey”, Alfred Kinsey, here’s a, here’s an interesting role for, for you to take on. I would imagine a number of people in the country never heard of Alfred Kinsey. Tell us, tell us how you came to meet him.
Liam Oh, myself? Ah, Alfred Kinsey was a sex researcher essentially. He, he, uh, he got involved in the field of human sexuality in 1938, and because he was struck by the level of ignorance in young people, especially who knew nothing of the facts of life, uh, and knew really nothing of their own bodies, and how they functioned sexually. Anyway, he, he collected over 18,000 interviews based on people’s sexuality, and wrote these two best selling books. Uh, the first one came out in 1948 called “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”. And “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” came out in 1953. And they were huge best sellers.
Mayo But they were quite academic books, weren’t they? These were very strange books to top the charts.
Liam Very, very academic, yep. And they were basically about, you know, the facts and figures of what people got up to sexually.
Mayo And what did they get up to sexually? This is a long time ago?
Liam This was a long time ago, I know. They were ... I mean ... I’m trying to think of facts and figures here. Oh, 93% of men masturbated. Uh, when the female book came out, ah, 63% of females masturbated which was shock, horror, 26% of females had, uh, other relationships within marriage, I mean …
Mayo Was the shock that of the fact someone had written about it? Or was the shock discovering that this behavior went on?
Liam I think it was a bit of both, you know. This was at a time when, uh, you know, you know, sex was never talked about, and, um, you know, for all we knew, nobody actually did it until Kinsey came along, you know. He was, I’d say, the principal architect that kind of ushering in certainly the women’s movement, the gay movement, possibly the revolution, the sexual revolution of the 60s.
Mayo Right, so this is all before the era of ‘love and flower power’ and so on?
Liam Free love and so on, oh yes, absolutely. This was in the 40s and 50s.
Mayo Right! Did you have much of a ‘flower power’ kind of youth, Liam? Uh, I mean, did, did any of this work its way into your upbringing?
Liam No, I can’t say. I mean I, you know, I did love the flower power music when it was on top of pops, you know, uh “Lets go to San Francisco”, all the rest of it, but …
Mayo He’s a controversial character. But one of the things that sounds quite interesting is he was completely, as far as I can understand it, non-judgmental. He was far more of a clinician; he said, “This is what happens!” Over to you!
Liam That’s the thing. And that was part of the controversy that he dared strip sex of all its moral issues and all its emotion, love, romance, etc. He wanted to study sexual behavior just in a fundamental biological level. Um, in these books, they are terribly dry books to read; they are full of pie graphs and charts, and stuff and percentages of people who did this, and do this, and do that. But when they, I mean, he didn’t set out to tell people how to behave, he said, “This is how you are behaving.” And America certainly had a knee jerk reaction to it, as indeed the western world did because the books were hugely successful in Britain, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain …
Mayo He was quite a complicated person though; he had a bit of mixed-up life. Do you ...
Liam He was a complex man, yeah.
Mayo Did he come to conclude that maybe he was wrong and that actually, when you’re talking about sex, maybe love and commitment and relationship actually does have something to do with it?
Liam Oh well, of course, I mean Kinsey, Kinsey would not have denied that he was. When he started off this research, he was struck by the fact that we knew more about the sexual behavior of our domestic animals than we did about ourselves. And being a starred scientist that he was, he saw this gap in human knowledge and, uh, he wanted to fill it.
Mayo So, when conservative groups in America have said that this is glorifying, uh, this man, they consider him responsible for AIDS and bringing about widespread acceptance of what they would call perversity and immorality, you would say what?
Liam Well, I would say it’s ridiculous. I mean there are these morality groups out there, ah, “Focus on the Family” is one organization that just see Kinsey ... they want to use him as a scapegoat: he’s the man responsible for introducing all of liberalization into the western hemisphere; he’s responsible for AIDS, he’s responsible for Wade vs. Roe; he’s responsible for the gay movement, the women’s movement. And they want to demonize him because if somehow they can succeed in demonizing him, then all this stuff would go back under the carpet, and everyone could live in blissful ignorance once again.
Mayo The film doesn’t shrink from, ah, very explicit discussions about sex and also this suggestion that he was also prepared to talk about pedophilia. Some of his critics try and underline this, make more of it. Should he have been more judgmental when he was speaking and interviewing a man who was turned out to be a pedophile?
Liam Uh, I don’t think so because he was ... I mean, the other thing about Kinsey which he’s famous for … he devised these system of interviews that were based on one-on-one interview technique. It was, he would ask, uh, he would sit down with a person, there would be something like 300 questions he would ask the individual about their sexual behavior guaranteed, but guaranteed total confidentiality. And he made them aware that, you know, by answering these questions, they would be helping science and human knowledge. And uh, he, he had planned a whole series of books, you see, two of which were homosexuality and sexual deviance. And he did in fact interview a number of pedophiles most of whom were in prison, because he had planned these series of books, he wanted to understand sexual behavior. And because he interviewed these pedophiles, I mean, he got extra controversy for that because, you know, it’s such a taboo subject, especially in a this day and age.
Mayo Terrific performance you put in. Were you, if you’re honest, slightly miffed that you didn’t get an Oscar nomination?
Liam I, I wasn’t holding my breath, I’ll be very honest with you. But I was a bit miffed that Bill Condon who was my writer and director didn’t get nominated for his script which I did think was …
Mayo Were you not holding your breath because this is not the kind of role, maybe like Michael Collins, not the kind of role that gets Oscar nominated?
Liam Um ... I … ah … don’t know how to answer that one, mate! I just, it’s just my own feeling myself and just because I’m a member of the Academy myself and I saw the positioning of films. And when they came out and all of that jockeying for position and I thought, “Well, “Kinsey” has been out now since Toronto Film Festival which is early September!" So maybe, you know, it has had its moment in the sun, so to speak.
Mayo One other question, Liam, if I may. And that it’s the week when a lot of people are thinking of the, of the liberation of Auschwitz 60 years ago. And as someone who has played Oskar Schindler and was Oscar nominated for that role, do you have a special empathy with that this week?
Liam Yes, I absolutely do. And I was working out at the gym here in the Dorchester, and I was, I was, I guiltily say I forgot all about it until I saw it on CNN. And it did make me think of shooting “Schindler’s List” which was 11 years ago. So, so the 50th anniversary was when “Schindler’s List” was in the cinemas, you know. It’s a, it was harrowing. And certainly this little clip I saw of these British Jewish survivors going back to Auschwitz with an interviewer and pointing out the sheds where they were corralled for years as kids. Uh, but we have to be reminded of this all the time, you know. And uh, yeah, it’s a very, very important date.
Mayo Liam, it’s been good talking to you again. And next time we’ll get you some tea.
Liam Okay, do your best.
Mayo And we’ll see if we can’t bottle it, copyright it, and send it to you. Liam Neeson, thank you!
Liam Thank you.
Liam Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you very much!
Mayo It’s an absolute pleasure. And if I was there with you in the same room, I would have brought you, as I did last time, uh, a flask of BBC tea.
Liam Oh, oh, I remember it, yeah!
Mayo I remember you became addicted to that stuff.
Liam I, I love it, especially out of the white polystyrene cups, but I gave up caffeine a year ago. But I still drink tea.
Mayo Well, there, there’s … I don’t know what it is in BBC tea, but it is legendary. It is special. And I’m sorry I can’t provide you with any today. So, it’s good to talk to you. Now “Kinsey”, Alfred Kinsey, here’s a, here’s an interesting role for, for you to take on. I would imagine a number of people in the country never heard of Alfred Kinsey. Tell us, tell us how you came to meet him.
Liam Oh, myself? Ah, Alfred Kinsey was a sex researcher essentially. He, he, uh, he got involved in the field of human sexuality in 1938, and because he was struck by the level of ignorance in young people, especially who knew nothing of the facts of life, uh, and knew really nothing of their own bodies, and how they functioned sexually. Anyway, he, he collected over 18,000 interviews based on people’s sexuality, and wrote these two best selling books. Uh, the first one came out in 1948 called “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”. And “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” came out in 1953. And they were huge best sellers.
Mayo But they were quite academic books, weren’t they? These were very strange books to top the charts.
Liam Very, very academic, yep. And they were basically about, you know, the facts and figures of what people got up to sexually.
Mayo And what did they get up to sexually? This is a long time ago?
Liam This was a long time ago, I know. They were ... I mean ... I’m trying to think of facts and figures here. Oh, 93% of men masturbated. Uh, when the female book came out, ah, 63% of females masturbated which was shock, horror, 26% of females had, uh, other relationships within marriage, I mean …
Mayo Was the shock that of the fact someone had written about it? Or was the shock discovering that this behavior went on?
Liam I think it was a bit of both, you know. This was at a time when, uh, you know, you know, sex was never talked about, and, um, you know, for all we knew, nobody actually did it until Kinsey came along, you know. He was, I’d say, the principal architect that kind of ushering in certainly the women’s movement, the gay movement, possibly the revolution, the sexual revolution of the 60s.
Mayo Right, so this is all before the era of ‘love and flower power’ and so on?
Liam Free love and so on, oh yes, absolutely. This was in the 40s and 50s.
Mayo Right! Did you have much of a ‘flower power’ kind of youth, Liam? Uh, I mean, did, did any of this work its way into your upbringing?
Liam No, I can’t say. I mean I, you know, I did love the flower power music when it was on top of pops, you know, uh “Lets go to San Francisco”, all the rest of it, but …
Mayo He’s a controversial character. But one of the things that sounds quite interesting is he was completely, as far as I can understand it, non-judgmental. He was far more of a clinician; he said, “This is what happens!” Over to you!
Liam That’s the thing. And that was part of the controversy that he dared strip sex of all its moral issues and all its emotion, love, romance, etc. He wanted to study sexual behavior just in a fundamental biological level. Um, in these books, they are terribly dry books to read; they are full of pie graphs and charts, and stuff and percentages of people who did this, and do this, and do that. But when they, I mean, he didn’t set out to tell people how to behave, he said, “This is how you are behaving.” And America certainly had a knee jerk reaction to it, as indeed the western world did because the books were hugely successful in Britain, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain …
Mayo He was quite a complicated person though; he had a bit of mixed-up life. Do you ...
Liam He was a complex man, yeah.
Mayo Did he come to conclude that maybe he was wrong and that actually, when you’re talking about sex, maybe love and commitment and relationship actually does have something to do with it?
Liam Oh well, of course, I mean Kinsey, Kinsey would not have denied that he was. When he started off this research, he was struck by the fact that we knew more about the sexual behavior of our domestic animals than we did about ourselves. And being a starred scientist that he was, he saw this gap in human knowledge and, uh, he wanted to fill it.
Mayo So, when conservative groups in America have said that this is glorifying, uh, this man, they consider him responsible for AIDS and bringing about widespread acceptance of what they would call perversity and immorality, you would say what?
Liam Well, I would say it’s ridiculous. I mean there are these morality groups out there, ah, “Focus on the Family” is one organization that just see Kinsey ... they want to use him as a scapegoat: he’s the man responsible for introducing all of liberalization into the western hemisphere; he’s responsible for AIDS, he’s responsible for Wade vs. Roe; he’s responsible for the gay movement, the women’s movement. And they want to demonize him because if somehow they can succeed in demonizing him, then all this stuff would go back under the carpet, and everyone could live in blissful ignorance once again.
Mayo The film doesn’t shrink from, ah, very explicit discussions about sex and also this suggestion that he was also prepared to talk about pedophilia. Some of his critics try and underline this, make more of it. Should he have been more judgmental when he was speaking and interviewing a man who was turned out to be a pedophile?
Liam Uh, I don’t think so because he was ... I mean, the other thing about Kinsey which he’s famous for … he devised these system of interviews that were based on one-on-one interview technique. It was, he would ask, uh, he would sit down with a person, there would be something like 300 questions he would ask the individual about their sexual behavior guaranteed, but guaranteed total confidentiality. And he made them aware that, you know, by answering these questions, they would be helping science and human knowledge. And uh, he, he had planned a whole series of books, you see, two of which were homosexuality and sexual deviance. And he did in fact interview a number of pedophiles most of whom were in prison, because he had planned these series of books, he wanted to understand sexual behavior. And because he interviewed these pedophiles, I mean, he got extra controversy for that because, you know, it’s such a taboo subject, especially in a this day and age.
Mayo Terrific performance you put in. Were you, if you’re honest, slightly miffed that you didn’t get an Oscar nomination?
Liam I, I wasn’t holding my breath, I’ll be very honest with you. But I was a bit miffed that Bill Condon who was my writer and director didn’t get nominated for his script which I did think was …
Mayo Were you not holding your breath because this is not the kind of role, maybe like Michael Collins, not the kind of role that gets Oscar nominated?
Liam Um ... I … ah … don’t know how to answer that one, mate! I just, it’s just my own feeling myself and just because I’m a member of the Academy myself and I saw the positioning of films. And when they came out and all of that jockeying for position and I thought, “Well, “Kinsey” has been out now since Toronto Film Festival which is early September!" So maybe, you know, it has had its moment in the sun, so to speak.
Mayo One other question, Liam, if I may. And that it’s the week when a lot of people are thinking of the, of the liberation of Auschwitz 60 years ago. And as someone who has played Oskar Schindler and was Oscar nominated for that role, do you have a special empathy with that this week?
Liam Yes, I absolutely do. And I was working out at the gym here in the Dorchester, and I was, I was, I guiltily say I forgot all about it until I saw it on CNN. And it did make me think of shooting “Schindler’s List” which was 11 years ago. So, so the 50th anniversary was when “Schindler’s List” was in the cinemas, you know. It’s a, it was harrowing. And certainly this little clip I saw of these British Jewish survivors going back to Auschwitz with an interviewer and pointing out the sheds where they were corralled for years as kids. Uh, but we have to be reminded of this all the time, you know. And uh, yeah, it’s a very, very important date.
Mayo Liam, it’s been good talking to you again. And next time we’ll get you some tea.
Liam Okay, do your best.
Mayo And we’ll see if we can’t bottle it, copyright it, and send it to you. Liam Neeson, thank you!
Liam Thank you.
Posted: Do - Februar 3, 2005 at 07:15 nachm.