Liam Neeson has revealed his late wife, Natasha Richardson, told him they’d not be getting married if he played James Bond.
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The Memory actor said that he’d been tapped up in the ’90s over potentially playing 007 in 1995’s Golden Eye. However, it seems Richardson wasn’t bowled over by the idea of her soon-to-be husband playing the hard-drinking, pun-loving lothario.
Recalling having his hat thrown into the ring to play Bond, Neeson told Rolling Stone that his late wife had told him “we’re not getting married” if he decided to take the role.
“I was not offered James Bond. I know the Broccolis. They looked at a bunch of actors,” Neeson explained. “Schindler’s List had come out and Barbara [Broccoli] had called me a couple of times to ask if I was interested, and I said, ‘Yes, I would be interested.’
“And then my lovely wife [Natasha Richardson], god rest her soul, said to me while we were shooting Nell down in the Carolinas, ‘Liam, I want to tell you something: If you play James Bond, we’re not getting married.’ So, I would tease her by going behind her back, making my fingers as though I’m holding a gun, and then [hums the James Bond theme]. I loved doing that shit!”
He added: “She gave me a James Bond ultimatum. And she meant it! Come on, there’s all those gorgeous girls in various countries getting into bed and getting out of bed. I’m sure a lot of her decision-making was based on that!”
In other news, Neeson has said that he wasn’t such a fan of his iconic phone scene from another blockbuster Hollywood franchise. Speaking about the famed scene in the first Taken (2008), Neeson said: “It was a cornball. I really did feel that. It’s nice to be proven wrong.”
The scene sees Neeson’s character Bryan Mills threatening the person who kidnapped his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) over the phone, which birthed the famous line “I have a particular set of skills.”