Liam Neeson will be next seen in Cold Pursuit (Courtesy: Facebook)
Liam Neeson says he once roamed the streets in pursuit of a black person to murder after a close friend of his disclosed that she had been raped by a (different) black person. The actor recalled this "awful" impulse during a recent press junket for Cold Pursuit, the latest film in which he plays a wronged man seeking revenge.
"I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be approached by somebody - I'm ashamed to say that - and I did it maybe for a week, hoping some 'black bas****' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know?" Neeson told the Independent's Clémence Michallon in an article published Monday. "So that I could . . . kill him." ("Cosh" is a British slang term for a bludgeon.)
Michallon noted that she, Neeson and his co-star Tom Bateman all acknowledged that this was a "distressing admission," which Neeson volunteered out of the blue. The Taken star said the impulse lasted about a week and a half before he realized it "was horrible, horrible."
After Bateman reacted with a concise "Holy s---," Neeson brought up his upbringing in Northern Ireland during a decades-long period of violence called the Troubles: "I knew a couple guys that died on hunger strike, and I had acquaintances who were very caught up in the Troubles, and I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing, and Northern Ireland's proof of that," he said. "All this stuff that's happening in the world, the violence, is proof of that, you know. But that primal need, I understand."
In Cold Pursuit, Neeson plays a snowplow driver who seeks revenge against the drug dealers he believes murdered his son. In Taken, which spawned two sequels, he plays a former CIA operative who seeks revenge against sex traffickers who kidnapped his daughter and her best friend. But many have reacted to Neeson's story in surprise - and disgust - given that the actor had never publicly admitted to this racist impulse before.
Neeson's publicist has not returned The Washington Post's request for comment.
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