William John Neeson or Liam Neeson is indeed a Northern Irish actor. Throughout his career, he had garnered several awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Tony Awards, as well as three Golden Globe Awards. Neeson was ranked seventh on The Irish Times’ list of Ireland’s 50 best cinema performers in 2020.
For 2 years in 1976, Neeson was a member of Belfast’s Lyric Players’ Theatre. Following that, he appeared inside the Arthurian movie Excalibur (1981). Between 1982 and 1987, he appeared in five movies, the most notable of which were The Bounty (1984) and The Mission (1987).
He made his name as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List after landing a big part in Next of Kin (1989). (1993). Ever since, he had featured in successful movies including such Nell (1994), Michael Collins (1996), Les Misérables (1998), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Kinsey (2004), Batman Begins (2005), Taken (2008–2014), The Grey (2011), and Martin Scorsese’s religious epic Silence (2016). He notably performed the voices of Aslan as well as the main creature in The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy and A Monster Calls, respectively (2016).
Neeson relocated to Ballymena upon graduating from university as well as worked in a number of part-time jobs, including forklift operator at Guinness and truck driver. He subsequently spent two years at such a teacher training institution in Newcastle upon Tyne after returning to his hometown. He joined Belfast’s Lyric Players’ Theatre in 1976 and performed there for two years. In 1977, he made his cinematic debut as Jesus Christ as well as an Evangelist inside the religious picture Pilgrim’s Progress (1978). After being given a role in Ron Hutchinson’s Says I, Says He, a drama on The Troubles there at Project Arts Centre, Neeson relocated to Dublin in 1978.
He went on to perform in a number of additional Project shows before joining the Abbey Theatre (the National Theatre of Ireland). He played Doalty in Brian Friel’s play Translations, the first production of Friel’s and Rea’s Field Day Theatre Company, which premiered at the Guildhall in Derry on September 23, 1980, starring Stephen Rea, Ray McAnally, and Mick Lally.
After seeing him on stage as Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men in 1980, filmmaker John Boorman offered him the role of Sir Gawain in the Arthurian film Excalibur. Following Excalibur, Neeson relocated to London, where he worked on stage, in low-budget movies, and on television.
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