William John Neeson was born on 7th June, 1952 in Ballymena, a small town in Northern Ireland. Liam is the third child and the only boy among four siblings, in a working-class Catholic family. As Liam recalls, "there was never a lot of money floating around. But there was always food on the table."

As a youngster he wanted to be a butcher, fascinated by the sharp knives. Fortunately that was not to be. The world may have lost a devoted butcher, but has certainly gained in the trade. Liam was eleven when he first stepped on stage. His English teacher gave him the lead role in a school play, and from then on Liam kept acting in school productions for the following years.

He took up boxing at nine, at the All Saints youth club, and continued the sport during his teenage years. He was fifteen when, as the result of a match, he got the broken nose that would become part of his distinctive looks. At sixteen, he had been Youth Heavyweight Champion of Ireland for three consecutive years, but blackouts and memory loss made him quit boxing. By that time, the same English teacher who'd cast him in his first lead role at school, founded a local amateur drama company, the Slemish Players, and Liam, then seventeen, joined the company and took his first role, in Philadelphia, Here I Come. It was to be a most successful debut, and his inspired performance won him a Best Actor award at the prestigious Larne Drama Festival.

At nineteen, more to please his parents than by his own inclination, he left home for University in Belfast, to study math and computer science, but he dropped out after only two terms, and returned to Ballymena. Liam then worked in a variety of small jobs, from fork-lift operator at Guinness to truck driver, before he tried school again, this time at a teacher-training college, in Newcastle, that also offered what he calls "a pale imitation of an actors' training course". He would last two years there, before he failed school again. While he regrets not finishing school, Liam also recognizes he was not cut out for the classroom and admits he was easily maneuvered by the young girls he was supposed to teach. Those two years, however, were not a waste of time. Staying at Newcastle provided Liam with the opportunity to meet other people who shared his interest in acting, and contact with theatre life made his desire to become an actor grow even stronger.

Back to Ballymena and to the Slemish Players' stage, Liam kept acting, learning and accumulating experience in a variety of roles. He would get his first experience in a movie in 1973, playing Jesus Christ in a religious film, Pilgrim's Progress and, in a memorable comedy role, he played one of the Ugly Sisters in a Cinderella Christmas pantomime. Tapioca, the Ugly Sister, would be his last performance for the Slemish Players. Taking a dare from a co-worker in the architects' office where he was employed at the time, Liam had successfully applied for an audition at the Lyric Players Theatre, in Belfast, and had at last become a professional actor.

After two years with the Lyric Players, Liam moved to Dublin and joined the Abbey Theatre in 1977. In 1980, John Boorman saw him on stage, playing Of Mice and Men, and offered him the part of Sir Gawain in what would become the Arthurian cult movie, Excalibur. In the aftermath of Excalibur, Liam moved to London, where he continued working on stage, small budget movies and TV series for the next seven years.

In 1987 he made a conscious move to take his chances in Hollywood. Although his portrait of a deaf-mute in Suspect, opposite Cher, would win him the critics applause, it would still take him three years and countless movies, before his lead role in Darkman would bring his name to public attention.

Despite his success in Darkman, the following years would not bring Liam the recognition he aimed for. Somehow all of his following movies fell short of their expectations, albeit through no fault of Liam, whose performances stayed consistently good, and are often the sole shining light of otherwise totally forgettable works. Reports from those years concentrate more on his high-profile girlfriends than on his acting; Liam, feeling his career was stalling, was getting disheartened with Hollywood.

In 1993, deciding it was time for a change, Liam accepted an invitation by Natasha Richardson, with whom he had worked years before in the TV series Ellis Island, to co-star in the Broadway play, Anna Christie. The play was a huge success and brought him a Tony Nomination for Best Actor. Liam and Natasha Richardson would eventually marry in 1994.

It was while appearing in Anna Christie that Liam would get the role that would at last bring him to stardom. Steven Spielberg, impressed by his amazing performance on stage, offered him the coveted role of Oskar Schindler, in his upcoming film about the Holocaust, Schindler's List. Liam had done a screen test for the role of Schindler, but, according to his own words, now away from Hollywood he really didn't care whether he got it or not. Story goes that, after the night's performance, Spielberg, his wife, Kate Capshaw, and Kate's mother went to talk to Liam backstage. Spielberg's mother-in-law, moved by the final scene in the play, was still crying, and when Liam saw it, he hugged and comforted her. Later that evening, going home, Kate Capshaw would comment to Spielberg that that was exactly what Schindler would have done, and that comment would definitely cast Liam as Oskar Schindler. 

At last in a major leading role, Liam was simply brilliant. His mesmerizing performance in this beautiful movie grabs us from the first second he appears on the screen, and earned him the well deserved recognition of both public and critics, and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Schindler's List established Liam as a talented leading man. Henceforth he would have the chance to play much more interesting roles. He's particularly fine in period movies, like the beautiful Rob Roy and Michael Collins, a movie Liam waited ten years to make. Michael Collins is undoubtedly one of his finest performances to date, having earned him a Best Starring Role Award at the Venice Festival and a Golden Globe nomination.

In 1999 Liam starred as Obi-Wan Kenobi's mentor, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, in George Lucas' eagerly awaited Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and became part of the Star Wars mythology. To what would otherwise be a relatively soulless movie, Liam's wonderful and flawless performance, alongside Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, brought a whole new depth of emotions, and to many fans both actors carry this movie all by themselves.

Notwithstanding Liam's absolutely deserved status among Hollywood's major stars, he appears to have remained genuinely faithful to his own straightforward and simple values, ever slightly an outsider in the star system. Not even his hyped and highly publicized role in The Phantom Menace seems to have changed him. A social column recently described how upon arriving at a party, and after having been extensively photographed, Liam balanced on his crutches and patiently told his name to the person in charge of checking the guest list.

A very private man, Liam lives in New York with his wife and two sons, Micheal Antonio, born in 1995 and Daniel Jack, born in 1996. His favorite hobby, which he picked up during the filming of Nell in the Smoky Mountains, is fly-fishing. He indulges in it whenever he can get a break from his heavy agenda.

Biography excerpted from The Liam Neeson Fansite.

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