The Best of Liam Neeson Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gawain

Liam Neeson had gone to study acting at Abbey Theatre. There he was discovered by John Boorman, the director who cast him as Gawain in "Excalibur". In this film, Neeson played Gawain and also appeared briefly as an extra dancing. This film featured a duel between Gawain (Neeson) and Lancelot (Nicolas Clay) regarding Guenevere.

Gawain was, of course, the nephew of King Arthur. He was strong, loyal, a healer, sometimes called the greatest knight. Gawain's sword was Excalibur.

Answer: German

This film was a huge success, and it received seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it number eight on its list of the 100 best American films.

Some of the suspense of the film came from the fact that Oskar Schindler was himself a Nazi Party Member. Schindler, (April 28, 1908 - October 9, 1974), was a German industrialist. He saved the lives of Polish Jews by employing them in his factories.

Answer: football

His passion for the sport was so strong that he went to a Liverpool-Fulham football game two weeks after Natasha Richardson's death. As a young man, while he was at university, he went to have a trial with Bohemian F.C. in Dublin, Ireland.

On a personal level, Neeson had been very involved with boxing. However, he had to stop that since he began to have blackouts from all the blows he received. It was in boxing that he received his broken nose, a feature which is part of his image.

In 1971, at the university, he majored in computer science.

Neeson has an amazing plethora of talents and passionate commitments.

Answer: Northern Ireland

He was born in June, 1952, in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. His mother was a cook, and his father worked at a local Irish girl's school.
He was named after the local priest.

The name Liam is used in both Gaelic and English. It is a short form of Irish name Uilliam (William.) It means "protector" or "determined protector".

Answer: Anna Christie

Neeson and Richardson met during the Broadway revival of the acclaimed O'Neill play. Richardson was 29 at the time and Neeson 40. The play is a complex study of Anna, who has had an unconventional past, and the contradictory Mat Burke who struggled with himself about Anna and her past.

The famous O'Neill scholar, Travis Bogard, in the book, "Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill", called Mat, "a true citizen of the sea." The tensions and emerging love between these two characters was pure theatrical magic. Richardson has said that she believed O'Neill wrote that role with Liam Neeson in mind. Of course he could not have done that. O'Neill died in 1953, one year after Neeson was born.

Answer: Qui-Gon Jinn

Neeson, as Jedi Knight Qui-Gon, was in George Lucas' "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace". Qui-Gon was the unforgettable character who lived in the moment. Qui-Gon's voice would be heard again in a short scene in "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" (2002). Neeson had apparently considered being Qui-Gon in "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005) as a "Force Ghost". Neeson once said of that possibility, "I can't speak about it," he quipped. "Jedi code of ethics."
His serious motorcycle accident kept him from this performance.

Speaking of ethics, Neeson is incredibly strong and brave--both physically and morally. In 2000, his Harley Davidson collided with a deer, and Neeson, at 48 years, suffered a broken pelvis. He still keeps the jacket (which was cut off of him) which Steven Spielberg had previously given him.
Neeson said: "It was a very bad accident and I had to have the jacket cut off my body. I still have it at home in the two pieces - I kept it because it was a gift from Steven Spielberg. It was in a sorry state, cut in two and totally unwearable....I'm not in a hurry to throw it away."

Answer: Taken

This was the 2008 thriller directed by Luc Besson. It dealt with a former spy who was committed to rescue his daughter by any means possible. Neeson said that he trained very hard for this film, learning highly complex fighting routines. He admitted that he loved its action.

In his own words, Neeson said in an interview with "Time Out Sydney",
"One gets a real kick out of shooting real movie baddies and driving like a racing car driver." In the same interview, he stressed the need to "aim high on an emotional level."

Answer: Nell

"Nell" was a splendid 1994 film in which Jodie Foster played the title character who has lived outside of society for long enough that her language has become difficult and distorted. When she was discovered, people wanted to study her, dissect her, and often they struggled hard over issues of her independence. Jodie Foster was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in this film.

Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson also met in this film. Neeson was Dr. Jerome Lovell and Richardson Dr. Paula Olson. They knew they had come upon a unique person in Nell and struggle over how to deal with her uniqueness.

Answer: Michael Collins

This film was awarded The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It starred Liam Neeson and Julia Roberts. It dramatized powerful events of the Civil War in Ireland. Liam Neeson brilliantly played a hero who died, most ironically, in his attempts to remove violence from Ireland.

Answer: Kinsey

In this film, Neeson portrayed the life and scholarly development of Alfred Kinsey, a man who studied human sexual habits. Kinsey's main work was his 1948 book, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male". Kinsey's approach was shocking in its time. After his death, however, people reported all kinds of aberrant behavior in Kinsey himself. Therefore, many later cautioned Neeson not to do the Kinsey film, saying it could tarnish his reputation.

In an interview with 'The London Observer," Neeson said of this role "In fact, next year, I'm gonna play Alfred Kinsey, the guy who did all the research on sexuality and sexual politics in America in the '50s. His results were astounding. Really big stuff. He got on the cover of Time magazine."

As usual, Neeson played complex characters caught in complex situations.