Liam Neeson had a complex childhood amid the social unrest in Northern Ireland.
Liam Neeson turned to boxing but found an outlet in acting. However, not everything was rosy for Neeson before achieving that reputation that surrounds and shelters him. What he knew how to earn on his own merit brings with it a path of suffering and constant demands. Situations that marked him on fire since childhood.
Liam was raised under the Catholic religion in a very strict way. Every Sunday, together with his parents and his three siblings, he went to mass, and during the week he held social actions in Bellymena, his birthplace, in Northern Ireland. “The Church had a great presence in our home. I was an altar boy when I was a child and I had the fantasy of being a priest, ”he recounted in an interview.
Neeson was born on June 7, 1952, into a complex time. In those years, Northern Ireland was plagued by violent social conflicts. There were two options: to be Catholic or Protestant; in between, there was nothing. “It was not easy growing up in that area, with two conflicting religions, with Protestants on the street. All of that makes you wary. Many friends died in encounters with other gangs. I was a boy who grew up in a place where there was a war for 30 years."
The actor has a marked date. On January 30, 1972, British paratroopers descended on the town of Deery and, without saying a word, began firing at large. 14 unarmed civilians were killed. A 19-year-old Liam was there: he almost miraculously saved his life by managing to take refuge in time. “I have met boys and girls who have been perpetrators of violence and victims. Protestants and Catholics. It is part of my DNA, ”he warns, without taking away the drama.
Neeson was just 9 years old when his parents enrolled him in boxing school, worried that he would play a sport, but even more so that he would know how to defend himself. His teacher was the village priest. "He was a great boxer, after a short time he became the best in Ireland," recalled the man in an interview when Liam was already beginning to be known worldwide.
"He had two pairs of old gloves and a book on how to box," the actor recounted those first blows. He grew so much that at 11 he started boxing professionally. That same year he began to study theater: far from a vocation, he did it to be close to a schoolmate he liked.
At 17, when he finished school, he enrolled in the university to pursue a degree in Physics and Computer Science, but soon after he abandoned books. By not studying, he had to work. And that was his great objective: since there was not enough money at home, he wanted to get it to have some independence. His first job was at a well-known brewery. Shortly after, he would also leave boxing, even though everyone envisioned a great future: a strong blow in a fight sent him to the hospital, and Liam no longer wanted to know anything about getting back into a ring.
In this series of dropouts, Neeson quit the job to become a professor of Computer Science. The argument with a 15-year-old teenager ended in a way that was as violent as it was reprehensible: Liam hit him. And they kicked him out. The year was 1976 and he decided to embark decisively on acting. He quickly gained ground until he became a benchmark for theater in his city. He also tried himself in minor movies, and he excelled.
His premiere was in 1980 when the British filmmaker John Boorman summoned him for Excalibur. He moved to England and on set met actress Helen Mirren, his first famous girlfriend. It was love at first sight. Soon after they tried living together, and four years later they distanced themselves. It was just when Liam was called up for Don Johnson's Miami Vice series, which forced him to move again, this time to the United States.
Liam was 42 years old when he met the great love of his life: the British actress Natasha Richardson. They married and had two children: Michael and Daniel. In 2000, his life put them to the test for the first time when the actor suffered a serious accident: he was riding his motorcycle on a road when a deer crossed his path, and he ended up falling down a ravine. Neeson managed to get back to the side of the road, hoping someone would see him. He was admitted with fractures and multiple contusions. The doctors' diagnosis was not promising. Over the months, he managed to recover. And there, from the first minute, Natasha was always next to him. The Irishman made movies again, but he was never able to get on a motorcycle, not even when the script established it.
The idyllic world of Liam and Natasha would collapse on March 18, 2009. The actress was skiing at a resort in Mont Tremblant, near Quebec, Canada, when she lost her balance going at high speed and ended up hitting her head on the ice. She was treated quickly, but the doctors could do nothing after verifying that she was brain dead. She was 45 years old.
From that moment the life of the actor changed radically. Submerged in grief, he asked to please go back to work to try to clear his mind, since he was afraid of entering a depression. "I'm not good without a job," he said in an interview with the 60-minute program. "I just didn't want, especially to my kids, to appear to be wallowing in sadness or depression." Not long ago he remarked that Natasha's death left him a lesson. “I learned to live and love every day as if it were the last. Because someday, it will be."
