Weekly Prayer Focus
To Pray for this Week
This week our prayer focus is: Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards. Liam was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and is the son of Katherine Kitty, a cook, and Bernard "Barney" Neeson, a caretaker at Ballymena Boys All Saints Primary School. He was raised Roman Catholic and was called Liam (the Irish and Scottish form of William) after the local priest. He was the third of four siblings; he has three sisters, Elizabeth, Bernadette, and Rosaline. At age nine, Liam began boxing lessons at the All Saints Youth Club, and later became Ulster amateur senior boxing champion. At age eleven, he first stepped on stage. His English teacher gave him the lead role in a school play, which he accepted because the girl he was attracted to would be starring. From then on, he kept acting in school productions for the following years.He discovered a talent for football at Queens University. He was spotted by Seán Thomas at Bohemian F.C. There was a club trial in Dublin. He only played one game as a substitute against Shamrock Rovers and was not offered a contract to continue playing.
After leaving university, Liam returned to Ballymena where he worked in a variety of casual jobs, from a fork-lift operator at Guinness to a truck driver. He also attended teacher training college in Newcastle for two years before again returning to his home town. In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast where he performed for two years. He got his first film experience in 1977, playing Jesus Christ and Evangelist in the religious film, Pilgrim's Progress directed by Ken Anderson. Neeson moved to Dublin in 1978 after he was offered a part in a production at the Project Arts Centre. The play was Ron Hutchinson's "Says I, Says He", a drama about The Troubles. He acted in several other Project productions and joined the Abbey Theatre. In 1980, filmmaker John Boorman saw him on stage, acting as Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men, and offered him the part of Sir Gawain in the upcoming Arthurian film, Excalibur. After Excalibur, Liam moved to London, where he continued working on stage, small budget films and television series. He lived with the actress Helen Mirren at this time, whom he met working on Excalibur. Between 1982 and 1987, Liam starred in five films; most notably alongside Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in 1984's The Bounty and Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons in 1986's The Mission. He also starred as a guest actor in the third season of the television series Miami Vice in 1986.
In 1987, Liam made a conscious decision to move to Hollywood in order to star in high-profile roles. That year, he starred alongside Cher and Dennis Quaid in Suspect. The role brought Liam critical applause, but it was 1990's Darkman that would bring his name to public attention.
He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars (the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey, Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises as well as the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia film series and The Grey as John Ottway
He starred in other notable films such as Excalibur, The Dead Pool, Nell, Rob Roy, The Haunting, Love Actually, Kingdom of Heaven, Taken, Clash of the Titans, The A-Team, and Unknown, as well as smaller arthouse films (e.g. Deception, Breakfast on Pluto, Chloe). He was ranked at number 69 on Empire magazine's 100 greatest movie stars of all time in 1997.
Liam was married to actress Natasha Richardson from 3 July 1994, until her death on 18 March 2009, when she suffered a severe head injury in a skiing accident at the Mont Tremblant Resort, in Quebec. Natasha and Liam had two sons: Michael and Daniel.
Liam lives in Millbrook, New York. In August 2004 he and his wife purchased an additional16 acres next to their estate.
A heavy smoker earlier in his career, Liam has since quit smoking. When he took the role of Hannibal for the 2010 film adaptation of The A-Team, Neeson had reservations about smoking cigars (which is a signature trait of the Hannibal character) in the film due to being an ex-smoker, but agreed to keep that personality trait of Hannibal intact for the film.
In August 2009, Liam stated on ABC's Good Morning America that he had been naturalised as a United States citizen.
A January 2012 article in The Sun indicated that Liam has thought of converting to Islam. This reportedly followed a period of filming in Istanbul, Turkey and hearing the call to prayer.
Pray for Liam, this week, that God will do something miraculous to reveal to him His Son and the grace and freedom available through His death.
-Heidi