When his fiction family is taken, he takes them back. When delivering an oddly Shakespearean soliloquy in a mostly crappy movie—something like, “Yes I’m an alcoholic, yes I’m a horrible father, but I did not hijack this plane!”—you believe him. And when someone calls him THE Liam Neesons, you don’t ask questions. Liam Neeson is the man.
And the action star is gracing the cover of GQ. He does the interview from a space he uses for meetings and to “sit and read and think.” (If that doesn’t sound like the Batcave, we don’t know what does.) But he’s not just a superhero. He’s a single father who, just like all dads, is worried about his boys getting hooked on drugs.
Neeson puts a toothpick box on a coffee table. “All right then, Let’s have at it.”
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Read Michael Hainey's entire story here.
On filming a sex scene in a Woody Allen movie when this happened…
“There's a scene where I'm going down on Judy Davis, right. Judy and I are in bed—obviously covered up—and as I'm going down, Judy's having this monologue in her head. And the crew are all ready, and we're waiting for Woody. No-show. It's starting to get a bit uncomfortable—it's a bed scene. Anyway, he came out after about twenty minutes and said, "Okay. Camera starts on Judy. Liam, I want to just see the top of your head. Okay, we know where you're going...." So there was no apology; nothing. What happened: His lawyer had gotten in touch with him to say Ms. Farrow has found naked photographs of her adopted daughter [Soon-Yi].”
On giving up drinking one year ago…
“I was drinking too much. It started since my wife died. It was like, so easy to just... Never at work, never would do it like that, but this time of night? Sitting with you, I'd easily have—I'd be on my second bottle. Before we finished, I would have been halfway down a third—and be totally fine! Pinot Noir: That's all I drink…So last year, I just thought—they've been throwing these action movies at me, and I thought, ‘Okay, let's just change it a little bit.’ And it's been great. I love it.”
On dating…“I'm keeping myself to myself. And I like it that way. I'm not hunting. I'm the opposite of a—what would a male cougar be? Is there such a thing? Whatever it is, I'm not that.”
On masturbation…“I remember going to confession once, and I had to learn the word masturbation in order to confess it. I wound up confessing it to one of these missionaries, and he fucking just lit into me. "YOU DID WHAT? YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS EVIL PRACTICE." Then I remember opening the door, and I could see all these old ladies waiting, and... Fuck's sake.”
On being raised Catholic and the automatic response to whether priests abused him…
“‘Oh, come on. They must have fiddled your willy.’ No, there were a lot of good men—and women, too.”
