Liam Neeson is Muy Macho (Interview)
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Published: Sunday, 15 January 2012 12:10
- Written by Lupe Haas
It is not every actor who becomes an action star in their late-fifties. If you ask his co-stars from the movie THE GREY, when it comes to Liam Neeson, this guy never slows down. But THE GREY action star tells CineMovie he plans on retiring soon from the action genre due to bad knees.
Filming on location in British Colombia THE GREY cast and crew braved 40 below weather, 80 mph winds, and snow drifts eight feet deep. They even experienced several white-outs and were forced off the mountain more than once. When you see these brutal weather conditions in THE GREY, it is real and the actors couldn’t be happier about living the part of plane crash survivors.
The script brought Liam Neeson to THE GREY. For him it read like a classic epic poem. Just shy of sixty, he knew it was going to be tough, but at an early table read Liam Neeson explained to the guys:
“The only way we are going to make this work is if you guys support me and I support you and we do it together. There are going to be days when I’m going to need help just getting out of bed and I’m going to need help getting there and being there mentally. And you’re going to need it too. So if we don’t do that, this movie is going to fail.”From the very start Liam showed his leadership abilities, but he was also just one of the guys with endless energy. Liam's GREY co-star James Badge Dale explains that the THE GREY star went out for drinks every night after dinner.
"Liam, why don’t you come with us? And he goes, Nah, nah. And then you watch him stop and he gets this child-like look in his eyes and this devilish grin and he goes, yeah, I’m coming with you. And from then on it was every night.”Liam says he never experienced such closeness with a cast in all his years of acting. Due to the geography of the set, there were no individual trailers or at the usual accomodations except for a shared Caterpillar vehicle that seated ten people, according to the Irish star.
"So we are thrown in there and we just got on with each other. There were no egos at stake. We just got on, as a bunch of guys. We became very, very, close friends, which was lovely. I’ve never really experienced that before in any of my fifty-five films.”
The cast have nothing but praise for Liam Neeson. “He is the most gentle, giving, loving man. When you see that man smile, something turns on inside of you,” quotes Dale. “He’s a big Irish poet.” adds Frank Grillo. “And I think he’d admit it, but I think Liam was afraid of letting us down, but the constitution of this man is amazing.” Frank goes on to joke, “If I’m ever in a plane crash I hope that Liam Neeson is on the plane. That guy never quits.
When Cinemovie asked Liam directly how much longer he’d continue this path of taking on such brutal roles he gave us a timeframe for his action hero retirement
“I’m done. My knees are complaining. Probably a year. Otherwise I’ll be acting on a Zimmer frame.”And before he retires, make sure to catch his latest turn as the leading action man in THE GREY when it opens in movie theatres January 27, 2012.