Taken star Liam Neeson was a guest on The Late Late ShowThursday, and the Irish actor recounted for host James Corden that he was up for the role of James Bond in the early ’90s. While it may have been a dream role for many and could have launched Neeson into the action star phase of his career about a decade earlier, he ended up pulling out of the running for a really sweet reason: because Natasha Richardson asked him not to take the role.
“I know they were looking at various actors and I apparently was among them,” Neeson told Corden. “However, my dear departed wife did say to me… ‘Darling, if you’re offered James Bond and you’re going to play it, you’re not going to marry me.’” Neeson took himself out of contention and the role ended up going to fellow Irishman Pierce Brosnan, who took on the license to kill with 1995’s Goldeneye. Neeson had no regrets about turning down 007, but he joked to Corden that he would tease Richardson after arguments by humming the iconic theme song and holding his hand in the shape of a gun.
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Neeson and Richardson met in 1993 when they co-starred on Broadway in Anna Christie. They both were nominated for Tony Awards for their leading performances and married the next year. They had two children together — Micheál, 26, and Daniel, 24 — before Richardson passed away in 2009 after an unexpected skiing accident.
Neeson starred alongside his son Micheál in the film Made In Italy in 2020, playing a man grieving the loss of his wife. “When I read the script I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a bit near the knuckle,’” Neeson explained on The Graham Norton Show. “I felt a churning in the gut, but thought it would be great to do and to do it with my son. It was cathartic in a way – the way in which art sometimes can be. There were some very delicate emotional scenes, and I could access the emotion without any problem, I didn’t need days to build up to it and I thought Micheál would be the same.”
