Liam Neeson

William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed seventh on The Irish Times list of Ireland's 50 Greatest Film Actors. Neeson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000. In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. His early film roles include Excalibur (1981), The Bounty (1984), The Mission (1986), The Dead Pool (1988), and Husbands and Wives (1992). He rose to prominence portraying Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993) for which he earned an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination. He followed by starring in Nell (1994), Rob Roy (1995), Michael Collins (1996), and Les Misérables (1998). He took blockbuster roles portraying Qui-Gon Jinn in George Lucas' space opera Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins (2005) and Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy (2005–2010). He also starred in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002), the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003), and the drama Kinsey (2004). Beginning in 2009, Neeson cemented himself as an action star with the action thriller series Taken (2008–2014), The A-Team (2010), The Grey (2011), Wrath of the Titans (2012), and A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014). He is known for his collaborations in the genre with director Jaume Collet-Serra, and starred in four of his films: Unknown (2011), Non-Stop (2014), Run All Night (2015), and The Commuter (2018). He also starred in Martin Scorsese's religious epic Silence (2016), the fantasy drama A Monster Calls (2016), Steve McQueen's heist drama Widows (2018), the Coen brothers' western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), and the romantic drama Ordinary Love (2019). Neeson is also known for his work on stage. He made his Broadway debut in 1993 with his performance as Matt Burke in the revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie earning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination. He then starred as Oscar Wilde in David Hare's The Judas Kiss in 1998. He received his second Tony Award nomination for his performance in the 2002 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible.