Eli
Glasner
1
hour ago
©
20th Century Fox
Liam Neeson and Viola Davis in a scene from the film Widows, where
they played a passionate married couple.
A
man hell bent on a mission of revenge.
It's
a description that applies to a litany of roles Liam Neeson
has played over the last decade.
Beginning
with 2008's Taken,
the Irish actor remade himself as Hollywood's favourite angry
man, growling at an endless line of kidnappers and thugs.
But
Neeson's recent real-life admission has brought a disquieting
sense of reality to the vicarious thrills he provides
onscreen.
In
an
interview with the Independent
to promote the film Cold
Pursuit,
Neeson talked about homicidal thoughts he had 40 years ago after
learning his friend had been raped.
He
asked the friend what colour the attacker was. She said he
was black. Then Neeson told the reporter, "I
went up and down areas with a [club] hoping I'd be approached by
somebody – I'm ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a
week, hoping some 'black b******' would come out of a pub and have
a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him."
"I can't separate this person that I now believe holds very deep-seated racist beliefs from the character he's playing." - Kathleen Newman-Breman
That
shocked Kathleen Newman-Bremang. An entertainment writer with
Refinery29, Newman-Bremang said hearing Neeson freely admit to
being ready to commit a hate crime will affect whether she
watches his movies. "I can't separate this person that I
now believe holds very deep-seated racist beliefs from the
character he's playing."
©
(Jon Blacker/Reuters)
(Jon Blacker/Reuters)
In
a subsequent interview on Good
Morning America, Neeson said
he's not racist and hopes his confession will get people to "open
up" because bigotry and racism exist.
While
some on social media applauded the 66-year-old
actor's candor, Newman-Bremang sees it as sign of
more open discussions about race.
But
she said the way Neeson talked about looking
for any black man to hurt is dangerous because it plays into
stereotypes "that all black men are responsible for the
actions of one black man."
Entertainment
writer Johanna Schneller remembers her first encounter with Neeson.
It was 1994 in Scotland.
She
was waiting in his trailer on location for the film Rob
Roy.
Neeson stomped in, caked with mud, none too pleased to be
talking to a reporter.
Eventually,
Neeson warmed up, but Schneller said he's always been
"self-aware but he's self-aware after the fact."
She
points to the time Neeson referred to the #Metoo movement as a "bit
of a witch hunt."
As
someone who's seen a lot of celebrities up close, Schneller
said most movie stars enjoy a veneer of protection,
shielding themselves from consequences.
When
that protection is shattered, she said, they're often shocked
saying,"Why me? I'm a good guy. You're supposed to like me!"
©
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC/Associated Press
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC/Associated Press
While
a series of promotional interviews to launch a wintry revenge
thriller may not seem the right platform, Schneller said films
can kick-start meaningful discussions about topics like racism. "I
am a person who believes people go to the movies because they give
us an excuse to start these kinds of conversations."
While
moments of honesty in such interviews are
rare, Schneller said journalists fail if they
don't truly confront what they hear.
"As
celebrity interviewers, we get [so few] moments when a person
is unguarded," she said. "We would actually be doing
everybody a service if we were say 'no, we're not done
with that yet,'" and pressed movie stars for more indepth
responses amid controversies like this.
Meanwhile, Neeson's career
is far from over. In the new film Cold
Pursuit, he
plays Nels Coxman, a small town snowplow driver who goes gunning
for the drug dealers who killed his son.
In
his quest for justice, Coxman sets in motion a chain of events that
spins out of control.
In
real life, Neeson's recent comments led to the cancelation of
the film's red carpet premiere
in New York City.
While
Kathleen Newman-Bremang said she will be steering clear
of Neeson's future projects, she's not concerned about his
career.
"He
is a successful, generally well-liked white man in Hollywood. He is
going to be fine. "
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