Some may say Liam Neeson shot himself in the foot last Monday in Dubai. Others may disagree.
Preferring not to shake hands, yet somehow seeming kind about it, the Irish actor sat down with Gulf News and two other local journalists for a 20-minute interview. His film, Taken 3, had just topped the box office in the US. He acknowledged this soaring success with reticent excitement, the kind of reserved gratitude you would expect from a man who has made a name for himself looking intimidating on screen — oft with a gun glued to his hand.
Perhaps that is where the trouble starts. Asked how his gun-control views have evolved in recent times, particularly in light of the fresh Charlie Hebdo shooting in France and the ongoing protests against police brutality in the US, Neeson did not hold back.
In a quote now picked up by major news outlets like Fox News and the Washington Post, he had said: “There’re too many [expletive] guns out there. Especially in America. I think the population is like, 320 million? There’s over 300 million guns. Privately owned, in America. I think it’s a [expletive] disgrace. Every week now we’re picking up a newspaper and seeing, ‘Yet another few kids have been killed in schools.’”
Within hours of the quotes going online, conservatives were vowing to never watch another Neeson film again.
Bearingarms.com, a website with the slogan “guns and patriots, saving liberty and lives”, published a displeased piece under the headline ‘Liam Neeson doesn’t think you should have a right to bear arms’. A number of right-wing bloggers followed suit, going on full-fledged rants against the 62-year-old. In the somewhat terrifying comments section of one website, a reader promised to buy a gun in tribute to the Neeson’s views.
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation in Washington, told conservative publication WND that Neeson’s comments represented a “rank hypocrisy”. Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh said that Neeson had “joined the chorus of people who say that the attacks in Paris show the need for more gun control in America”, ignoring that the actor was also asked about the tense climate in the US. In a show of support for Neeson, British journalist Piers Morgan tweeted that he was “one of the few top actors prepared to actually say this”.
The more interesting part of the entire kerfuffle is that it isn’t news at all. Speaking to British newspaper the Independent four months ago, Neeson shared a nearly identical sentiment on the abundance of firearms in America — too many guns, too many children dying. Perhaps the expletives he employed this time are what finally sparked a reaction.
Despite being naturalised as a US citizen in 2009, Neeson is considered by some to be “un-American”, a foreigner overstepping his boundaries. Further fuelling cries of hypocrisy, his comments came in tandem with the promotion of Taken 3, the latest instalment in a franchise that has raked in more than $650 million (Dh2.3 billion) worldwide. In it, Neeson’s gun-toting character, Bryan Mills, seeks revenge — one bullet at a time.
Dubai roundtable
Neeson’s filmography, of course, goes far beyond Mills’ hunger for vengeance. The last several decades have seen him take on more meaningful and political projects. In 1993, he earned Academy Award, Golden Globe and Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nominations for his breakout role as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List, a former member of the Nazi party recognised for saving more than 1,000 Jewish lives during the Holocaust. In 1996, he portrayed historical figure Michael Collins, an Irish leader who helped establish the Irish Free State in the 1920s.
Back at the roundtable in Dubai, he singled those titles out as career highlights.
“I’m proud of [Michael Collins] because it dealt with a highly controversial figure in Irish politics ... and it’s thrilling to know that Schindler’s List is being used as an educational tool for kids and college students, teaching them about tolerance and all the rest of it,” he said.
Still, Neeson stood by the Taken franchise when time came to defend it, distinguishing it from real-world violence as fantasy. The actor, who claimed he had never been in a fight — “You never know if someone’s got a gun or has got a knife” — reasoned that loving western films as a child and doing ‘bang-bang-you’re-dead!’ gestures with his hands, never turned him into a killer.
“It’s in the movies, you know? I think it can give people a great release from stresses in life and all the rest of it, you know what I mean? It doesn’t mean they’re all going to go out and go, ‘Yeah, let’s get a gun!’,” he said.
