'I wanted to get leads in movies and I wasn't going to do that in London. I was the right age, I had enough experience and I was sufficiently mature in myself to be able to cope with it. What I didn't want was to be sitting in my little flat in Stockwell at the age of forty-seven, kicking myself and becoming another disgruntled Irishman with a chip on my shoulder.'
--Liam on his move to America, Elle, Sept 88

Moving to Hollywood five years ago was disconcerting for the shy guy - shortly after arriving in LA, walking the streets of Beverly Hills admiring the monumental mansions, he was almost arrested by police who mistook him for a burglar
-- Elle, Jan 1992

'When I first came put here,' he says, settling into an armchair in his white living-room, overlooking a sunny yard and swimming-pool, 'I'd go to these auditions and there would be 50 or 60 guys desperate for that one job. A couple of guys tried to pick fights with me in toilets. I couldn't believe it.'
--Marie Claire, 1990

And Neeson's still a bit stunned by America. 'You know, twenty million people watched the episode of Miami Vice I was in Ñ I'm told this is a mark of success. But it kills the brain, I can tell you.'
--Elle, Sept 88

he did star in the acclaimed BBC AIDS play, Sweet As You Are, as a lecturer who contracts the lethal virus after a fling with a student. His performance was excellent, understated and moving, and in no way diminished by the presence of Miranda Richardson, an actress who usually wipes the floor with her co-stars. He was clearly affected by the subject matter. 'Indeed, I had an AIDS test myself about a year ago because I wanted to see what it was like. I was curious, but also I'm a single guy, I'm very heterosexual and I was scared.'
--Elle, Sept 88

Yates, the veteran British director (Bullitt, Breaking Away, The Dresser), gave Neeson a part in a movie called Suspect. The female lead was Cher, and Yates told Neeson he wanted him for one of the male leads. It was a challenge: a deaf-mute wildman of the streets. "Peter said, 'It's going to be a battle, getting you into it.'" But there he was, in Los Angeles, and he was called to a meeting in the 30th-floor office of an executive of the production company, Tri-Star. "I met this man and he said, 'Peter really wants you in. Do you like this part?' I said, 'Yeah, I love it. I'd love to be able to do it.' He said, 'Okay. Good. Thanks.'
-- The Sunday Times Magazine, Jan 1994

How did you research the homeless deaf mute you played in Suspect?
"I went undercover for several days at a Washington DC shelter for the homeless. A lot of the men stayed away from me. They were a wee bit more scared of me than I was of them. There were a lot of Vietnam vets in the shelter as well as teenaged boys who had the look of 50-year-old men in their eyes. I also went to a special college for deaf students."
--Cleo, Jan 1993

A friend of mine was interviewing you when Satisfaction came out and you cut short the interview because you were off to the hospital to visit Julia, who was suffering from meningitis. You were bringing her broiled chicken because that's all she would eat. That sounds like true love to me. "Yeah, just call me the Irish Florence Nightingale. I'm not going into detail, as I said, but let me just say that like Barbra, Julia and I will remain friends on some spiritual level for life."
--Cleo, Jan 1993

"I have no intention of ever seeing Satisfaction," he says, laughing. "I was doing Suspect and feeling a wee bit depressed and really ugly and awkward, and the script had pretty girls running around, and I thought, "'This sounds great.'"
--Premiere, Oct 1989

Of The Good Mother, in which he played Diane Keaton's lover accused of sexually abusing her young daughter, he's said: "I haven't forgiven the director and producers for it. They got scared and dodged the real issues involved."
--Cosmopolitan Feb 1995

What's been your scariest moment?
"In 1988, I woke up in bed with the doctor looking me straight in the eye and telling me that I had an abscess in my stomach and that I was lucky to be alive. I found it extremely difficult to comprehend because I had never had a day's illness in my life. I'm a vegetarian. I eat well. I ended up having a section of my stomach removed."
--Cleo, Jan 1993

At the time there were those who said that it was a "courageous" role for Neeson to take. Neeson pooh-poohed this. "I think the film could have been a bit more courageous, if anything," he said. "In the book the character actually gets an erection.
-- On The Good mother, The Sunday Times Magazine, Jan 1994

"The Dead Pool has been the most demanding film I've worked on. Eastwood really wanted it put through quickly. Do you know he even shoots rehearsals. I had to be thinking on my feet all the time. There wasn't time to take a break. I love professionalism, I think Clint probably invented that word. It's so close knit with him, everyone knows everyone else, it all goes so smoothly too".
--Film monthly, May 1989

"People always ask me 'Wasn't it great to work with Clint Eastwood?' [Neeson had a small role in The Dead Pool.] I was kind of goin' 'Yeah, it was great.' Afterward, I thought, It wasn't great. It was like clockin' in to a factory. He was in his dubbing studio [finishing Bird] in his head. He's a lovely man, but it was like 'Come on, say the lines. Hit the marks.' We probably said five words to each other."
--GQ, Dec 1993

Next of Kin, which Neeson describes as "Deliverance meets The Godfather." Neeson went down to Kentucky three weeks before shooting started to work with dialect coach Robert Easton and to immerse himself in rural America. "Many people [there] are of Scotch-Irish descent. Luckily, I found a lot of similaritiesÑnot just in the rhythms and accents but in the attitudes to life," says Neeson. "John Irvin took a big chance casting meÑ it's a classic American part."
--Premiere, Oct 1998

The stardom thing does scare me though. I worked with Patrick Swayze on my latest film Next Of Kin. There were lots of young girls all over the place, while we worked on location. They went everywhere Patrick went, screaming and trying to get as close as possible. I've never seen anything like it before, it made me feel uneasy, I don't think I would like to have that happen to me. Pat took it all in his stride though, he's used to it you see".
--Film monthly, May 1989

"People have told me that you don't really grow up until one of your parents dies, and I think it's true; suddenly I'm no longer just somebody's child, I'm the keeper of the flame, especially as I'm the only boy."
--Liam about the Death of his Father, Sunday Express, Jan 1989
"I was listening to the priests tell wonderful stories about him, like the time my dad was driving on the motorway and was pulled over by the police for going too slowly. That was exactly like him; he ambled through life like a snail, which could be terribly infuriating sometimes. But it reminded me how important it is to stop and smell the roses. I'm aware that's something I haven't been doing enough of."
--Liam about his Father's Death, Sunday Express, Jan 1989

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. An 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.
--Movieline, May 1999

"I was at a funeral last week," said Liam Neeson. "It was my father. My father died last week. And I was carrying my father's coffin. And this manÑhe's known my father, lived in the town all his life, and his father and his fatherÑhe sidled up beside me and said, 'I believe you've been working with Clint Eastwood, Liam.' And I'm carrying my dad's coffin! There's a side of me that just wanted to hit this guy, and there's another side which is thinking, my father would have loved that. He would have laughed. It is funny."
--Blitz, Feb 1989

It's frighteningly easy to get out of practice; I had a date a couple of weeks back - my first real one in 10 months. Your hands shake, you feel sick, you're fixing yourself up in the mirror and thinking to yourself, 'Is it too late to ring and cancel?'
--Single Liam about dating, Sunday Express, Jan 1989

"I do feel these urges more and more. I love seeing pregnant women, I just drool at the mouth - I've always been like that. But when it's your own baby, you really want to make sure it's with the right person."
--Liam about wanting children someday, Sunday Express, Jan 1989

Sam Raimi recalls that during the making Darkman "we were shooting this big rain scene after Liam's character is terribly burned. He's staggering from the hospital into an alleyway, and he has to fall face-first into a giant, filthy puddle. It's asking a lot of an actor. But Liam insisted on doing as many stunts as he could. Before he's to take his first fall into the mire, a rat goes swim-ming by. The two of us are standing knee-deep in water, and this rat is swimming. I thought, Forget it. No one in his right mine would want to go swimming with rats. Liam looked at me and said, 'Hey, Sam, really realistic mechanical rats.'"
--Egg, Aug 1999

The one film where I thought I looked handsome was Darkman. When I had all that makeup on and the cloak and hat, I felt really cool and sexy and very swashbuckling. The wives and girlfriends of crew members visited the set, and a couple of times I was slipped phone numbers when I was in make-up. By the end of the film, I was scared to take it off, that they might go, ick, he's Irish and look at him.
--Cleo, Jan 1993

To New Yorkers, everything is a challenge. So when the Who Is Darkman posters went up early this past summer, every wiseass in town started scrawling an answer on top of them. Mike Tyson's name was the first to show up, quickly followed by Spike Lee's and Mayor David Dinkins'. Arsenio Hall told his audience that he was Darkman. In all that time, no one ever mentioned Liam Neeson. The real Darkman, who plays the title character in Miramax's upcoming The Big Man, thinks it's very funny. "Aye," he says in his low-pitched Irish brogue. "I know there was lots of talk about who was Darkman. I always knew that if it wasn't a good movie, I could distance myself from it because I was covered up for 90 percent of the picture. But if it was good, then I could say, I was the Darkman! And it worked out pretty well." Neeson dissolves into laughter.
--American Film, Dec 1990

His screen test for Dead Poets Society landed him the lead. "The director, Jeff Kanew, told me, 'You're my guy,'" Neeson recalls. Kanew was replaced by Peter Weir and the lead went to Robin Williams, but a videotape of Neeson's brilliant reading of the classroom "carpe diem" speech circulated throughout Hollywood and caught the eye of Dustin Hoffman. Neeson later auditioned for a role in Billy Bathgate. He didn't get that job either, but Hoffman gave him the highest possible praise: "I couldn't be better than you in (the carpe diem) scene."
--Entertainment Weekly, Jan 21, 1994

Neeson sees it as a personal movie that is political as well. "What Thatcher has done in Great Britain and Ireland is horrendous. But what she can never do is break the backs of the people. The Big Man is concerned with that spirit, with the heart that 'little' people have in the face of great odds," he says. --American Film, Dec 1990

And I got this incredible video of one of Hitler's 1936 rallies. Millions of people were there, and the awe and euphoria on their faces is something. Looking back, we can see the evil in it, but that's because we know what happened. What they saw then was that the guy was putting food on their tables and making the country strong. I am just dying to play one of those stiff-collared, close-cropped Gestapo agents. A real slimeball. That would be fun." (And he'll get his chance, having just been cast in Shining Through.)
--American Film, Dec 1990

I did Leap of Faith for very political reasons," he admits. "I realized that the way to crack Hollywood is to do a successful box-office film. This has a $30 million budget and it's slated to be Paramount's Christmas blockbuster. Also, I get to play a tall, strong American, the kind of role that Gary Cooper would play if he were alive. It's a strong male role and hopefully I'll be able to use it to get similar parts."
--Elle, Nov 1992

"Everybody remembers Ethan Frome as that tragic love story with a toboggan," says Neeson. "It's like Of Mice and Men. It's a story you don't forget."
--Mirabella, Jan 1993

Neeson was also intent on putting his own physical stamp on the role. Although he plays a robust if laconic young farmer for most of the film, some sequences require Neeson to imitate an older man battling the effects of a sledding accident: a massive limp which the actor came up with in a meeting with Madden in a New York restaurant.
"The place was pretty empty," recalls Madden. "But he ran to the opposite end of the room and began hobbling towards me. He has an extraordinary mix of intuition and technique."
"I felt it was important that Ethan wasn't seen as a cripple with polio but someone who was very gnarled and twisted and strange, like much of the landscape up there," says Neeson.
--Newsday, Mar 1993

However, it wasn't until Neeson finished "Ethan Frome" and "Leap of Faith" and saw no new projects on the horizon that he signed on. Aware that he would need to "re-tune" for the stage, Neeson learned all his lines in advance so that rehearsals could be spent "doing this," he says staring into his visitor's eyes and "not this," he says looking down at an imaginary script. "If you try to approach O'Neill intellectually, you'll fall flat on your face."
--on Agatha Christie, Newsday, Mar 1993

Like many British actors, though, Neeson had another option; the stage. In 1990 he decided to back off from Hollywood for a while to perform in a Broadway production of Anna Christie. It was a fateful decision. Not only did he meet his future wife in the form of his co-star, Natasha Richardson, but it was his Tony-nominated performance that finally convinced Steven Spielberg that he had found his Schindler. Neeson had already done a screen test for the part; several months had passed. But after seeing the show, Spielberg took his wife, Kate Capshaw and her mother backstage to meet its stars. Seeing that Capshaw's mother was still wiping her eyes after the performance, Neeson gave her a big bear hug, lifting her clean off her feet. Later in the car going home, Capshaw told her husband that it was exactly what Oskar Schindler would have done. Two weeks later, the part was his and Neeson was up to his knees in snow in Poland, filming just outside of Auschwitz.
--TV Movie, Mar 1996

"There in front of me were those familiar bleak rows of huts but also all the usual clutter, the caravans and trailers and cables. I knew I was standing in front of a sacred monument, but at the same time, in my jet-lagged state, it was just another location." One of the coproducers, Branko Lustig, was standing beside him. "He said to me, 'Horrible, isn't it?' I told him, 'I suppose. But somehow I don't feel it.' And Branko took off his glove without a word, unbuttoned his cuff, and pulled up his sleeve - and there it was. The tattooed number. He said, 'I was born here, in Auschwitz.' And for me the connection was made."
--Vogue, Jan 1994

" And she was going, 'Well, Tom Hanks lost weight for Aids, Dennis Quaid lost weight for Doc Holiday and what did you do for Schindler's List? And as a joke I said I didn't put on any weight at all for the role because I couldn't bear to look fat on screen. In fact, I did put on weight for the role but I didn't want to f**king advertise it, y'know? It's my own personal process."
--TV Movie, Mar 1996

That films still comes calling on his personal life. "Only this year I was walking through a hotel lobby in France and this man came up to me - he looked the image of Bertolt Brecht - and says, 'My father was a Schindler Jew . . . Thank you.' I was really floored. Y'know, what do you say, 'No, thank you for your father's survival'?"
--TV Movie, Mar 1996