14 DAY TRIAL // Two years after wife Natasha Richardson fell while skiing in Canada and died days later from brain hemorrhage, Liam Neeson is opening up about it – and the pain that still keeps him up at night. The full heartbreaking interview with Esquire is here.
Neeson ran away from the grief by burying himself in work. He’s been shooting and promoting movies since then but never before has he agreed to speak of Natasha’s death or what life without her has been for him.
When he does open up, it’s almost as if he can’t find the words to express his pain, a pain that, at the same time, he knows others have suffered too, the Esquire piece notes.
“I think I survived by running away some. Running away to work. Listen, I know how old I am and that I’m just a shoulder injury from losing roles like the one in Taken. So I stay with the training, I stay with the work,” he says of how he went back to work shortly after the funeral.
It’s not hard to find things to keep you occupied – to keep your mind busy and thus delay the moment when grief strikes. Yet when it does, it’s beyond your control, it’s beyond anything you may have imagined or planned, Neeson says.
“It hits you in the middle of the night – well, it hits me in the middle of the night. I’m out walking. I’m feeling quite content. And it’s like suddenly, boom. It’s like you’ve just done that in your chest,” he says.
“Here Neeson reaches out and twists both hands in opposite directions, like he’s corkscrewing two ends of a soda can, reaches toward me so it’s clear: This is in his chest,” the Esquire interviewer adds.
Liam also reveals he’s now the sole carer of Natasha’s dog, a poodle he hates taking out for walks precisely because he knows the entire world knows it was Natasha’s dog.
He takes her (the dog) up to a farm though, and there they are practically inseparable. “And we’re all over that farm, this little poodle and me. Everywhere. She’s like a working dog up there. She’s given herself over completely. She’s just a damned good dog. That’s why it’s a thing for me just now,” he says.
In the same interview, the actor also talks a bit about how he rushed to the hospital to see Natasha and how he couldn’t get in because no one knew who he was and did not want to break the rules.
For the full piece with Esquire, please refer here. It’s certainly unlike any other celebrity interview, a painful glimpse inside the heart of one of the most talented actors out there, Liam Neeson.