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NOVEMBER 2018
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33
Interview
believed them – it’s just too far-fetched, too
unbelievable.
“I’ve had an unbelievable life. I do believe
you create your own luck too, certainly, but
you know, I have been very lucky as well! I
remind myself of that every time I pass by a
construction site, or when I see somebody
digging a ditch, and I think ‘Oh, that’s real
work’. You have to respect that.”
MODERN-DAY SEX SYMBOL
But Neeson – who names Brigitte Bardot
as the greatest film icon of all time, and
passionately refutes any reference to himself as
a modern-day sex symbol – is no stranger to
hard graft, even as he creeps gradually towards
septuagenarian status. In terms of screen
work, this year started off with
The Commuter
,
a film that combined travel and murder on a
New York train, placing them in the hands of,
handily, a life-insurance salesman.
Next up is
Widows
, where four armed
robbers perish in a failed heist, only to have
their bereaved partners step up to finish
the job. Add in the final elements of
Hard
Powder
, featuring a snowplough driver bent
on revenge after his son is murdered by
drug dealers, the Coen Brothers TV series
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
, and voiceover
work as part of
Star Wars Rebels
, and it’s
clear Neeson’s appeal remains in an industry
undergoing a major reinvention. And the
rewards are not just financial – he has an
Oscar nomination for Best Actor, as well
as being nominated for a Bafta and Golden
Globes. He also regularly features in ‘top 100
actors of all time’ polls.
“What I learned growing up was a work
ethic. That’s a real characteristic in Northern
Ireland, and my parents drilled it into my sisters
and myself: get a job, no matter what your
profession is going to be. Get a job, provide
for yourself and provide for your family.
“I don’t think I could ever move away
from that, even if I wanted to.”
Charming, cerebral, humorous and
iam Neeson’s extended
stint as retired CIA
operative Bryan Mills
in the unexpected hit
franchise
Taken
may be
doing great things for his ability to travel the
world – at £12million per movie you wonder
why he doesn’t start chartering his own
holiday flights – even if in some quarters, the
perception of Europe he is creating has taken
something of a battering.
The 66-year-old recently revealed he had
received a letter from a schoolteacher in Texas
whose efforts to organise a trip for her class to
Europe had failed because a high proportion
of parents were all too aware of his hugely
successful
Taken
movies, and were unduly
worried about a potential kidnap threat.
“It was a new one on me,” the Ballymena
native begins. “I mean, I admit, everywhere I
go there seems to be someone snatched off the
streets – I am to kidnap what Miss Marple is
to murder. If you see me about, get your loved
ones as far away and as quickly as possible!”
Thankfully, the sleek, stylish star – who
continues to enjoy a genuine renaissance in
the action genre where the majority of other
roles have gone to those two or three decades
his junior – is rather more level-headed
when it comes to travel.
“I think it’s the ultimate pleasure, travel,
isn’t it?” he says. “Whether alone or with
someone, that whole idea of venturing
somewhere is special – how many times do
we say it’s the journey not the end destination
that gives us the greatest satisfaction?”
Growing up in Northern Ireland and
obtaining work as a forklift truck operative
before training as a teacher, the notion that
Neeson would go on to become a global film
icon, criss-crossing the globe on business,
leisure and humanitarian projects, would
have seemed perverse.
“If I was sitting in a physics class when I
was 15 and someone showed me a crystal ball
of what I’d be doing now, I wouldn’t have
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