The actor Liam Neeson modelled his entire career on: “You just accept it”
There’s no blueprint for building a successful film career, although Liam Neeson could have done a lot worse than trying to emulate an international superstar who was born and raised less than 200 miles away from the Irishman’s home town of Ballymena.
Like the actor whose homework he sought to copy from, Neeson had no formal training as an actor. He worked a series of odd jobs, including training as a teacher and operating a forklift, before getting started in theatre in the late 1970s. Instantly bitten by the acting bug, treading the boards and gracing the screen was the only thing he wanted to do with his life.
He was hardly an overnight sensation, though. He gradually worked his way up the ladder through supporting parts in movies like the Arthurian epic Excalibur and the seafaring drama The Bounty opposite Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. He gained more notice alongside Cher and Dennis Quaid in the legal thriller Suspect and was told not to look so tall next to Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry sequel The Dead Pool.
Neeson was a recognisable face among mainstream audiences, but he didn’t truly break through until his Academy Award-nominated performance as the title character in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Dovetailing between a leading man and supporting characters, he settled into a groove as a regular father figure and mentor onscreen before his unexpected reinvention as an ass-kicking action hero.
Admittedly, accents have never been Neeson’s strongest suit, but it was fortunate that the actor he wanted to model himself on was in the exact same position, and it didn’t hamper them from becoming an A-list icon. One major difference is that whereas Sean Connery originated the role of James Bond, Neeson turned it down after being told that his wife-to-be wouldn’t tie the knot if he signed up for 007.
Like Connery, Neeson was a tall and imposing figure who was equally capable of playing dashing romantic leads as a steely authority figure. They were also partial to a period piece, action flick, and high-concept thriller or two, with the latter admitting to Vanity Fair that he looked to the Scotsman for inspiration whenever he was concerned audiences wouldn’t buy into him as a character.
“Connery did a film, The Wind and the Lion, I think it was,” he explained. “He was playing a Moroccan, dressed in all these robes and swords and stuff, a real romantic thing. He kidnaps Candice Bergen and says something like, ‘I am Prince Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, and you are my prisoner’. You laugh, but then you think, Connery can do anything. You just accept it. I remember him saying once, ‘I can’t change my accent; I wouldn’t know who I was if I did’. Which I respect.”
It worked out pretty well for him in the long run, even if there’s one key difference to have emerged between them: Neeson is now older than Connery was when he wrapped production on his final feature, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, and yet his days of running and gunning still aren’t behind him.
