Liam Neeson rarely talks about his late wife Natasha Richardson, who lost her life at the age of 45 in a freak skiing accident in 2009. Now, more than a decade on, the Irish actor has opened up about her tragic death and what it was like playing a grieving husband in the 2020 film Made in Italy, alongside his oldest son Micheál Richardson (who goes by his late mother’s surname).
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show via video link just over two weeks ago, Liam, 68, explained how the role hit a bit too close to home for him at first, but was ultimately “cathartic”. “When I read the script I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a bit near the knuckle’,” he told the chat show, Hello! Magazine reports. “I felt a churning in the gut, but thought it would be great to do — and to do with my son.
“It was cathartic in a way — the way in which art sometimes can be,” he continued. “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.”
Micheál, 25, who plays Liam’s estranged son in the film, went on to say that the pair were both struck by how similar the film was to their own real-life experiences. “It was so odd that it was 10 years after Mum had passed and we were actually selling a family home that she grew up in, so it hit a little harder for us,” Micheál said.
Natasha died while on a skiing holiday in Canada. She was reportedly taking part in a skiing lesson at the time and despite getting up again after her fall, she later died in hospital.
Liam was filming nearby in Toronto when he received the call. “I spoke to her and she said, ‘Oh darling. I’ve taken a tumble in the snow.’ That’s how she described it,” Liam told the US version of the TV show 60 Minutes in 2014.
“When I was in the air the pilot was told, ‘Listen, divert your flight to Montreal because she’s gonna be taken to the big hospital in Montreal’. I got a taxi to this hospital and this doctor — he looked all of 17 — showed me her X-ray. And you didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see what was happening. I was told she was brain dead. And seeing this X-ray it was, like, ‘Wow.’ But obviously she was on life support and stuff.
“I went in to her and told her I loved her. [I] said, ‘Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this. You’ve banged your head. I don’t know if you can hear me, but this is what’s gone down. And we’re bringing you back to New York. All your family and friends will come.’ And that was more or less it.”
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