What attracted you to Blacklight? It was a particularly delicious role as the head of the FBI, who was close friends with Liam’s character. Liam plays someone who goes undercover and retrieves agents that have gotten themselves in trouble. Nobody really knows that much about him because of the nature of the job. Then things start to go a little bit awry, and we go to battle. What else can you tell us about your character? He was in the Army and came up through the intelligence services. At some point, he took a turn. He lost his wife, so the job became his only thing. He thinks the country is going to hell in a handbasket and it needs some straightening out. Blacklight is your sixth film with Liam Neeson (after The Mission, Lumiere and Company, Out of Ireland, Michael Collins and The Unknown). In the first film that we did together, we actually never even crossed paths. The day I flew back from Colombia working with Robert De Niro on The Mission was the day he was flying in, so we never met on that one. But on Michael Collins, it was such a delicious relationship, the characters we played. We had been friends before, and we became better friends. It’s always a joy to work with an old friend that’s so incredibly talented and you have a shorthand with. You know that once the music turns on, there is just no messing about, you just get straight to the dance. As a viewer, are you a fan of action thrillers? And if so, do you have any favorites? I like all the ones that Liam’s in. It’s actually not my favorite genre, to be perfectly honest, but there are obviously some really, really good ones. I enjoy any good story that’s well told and has good characters and good actors. For The American Guest, in which you play Teddy Roosevelt toward the end of his life, you did a great deal of research. What did you learn about the former president that you didn’t know? Literally, there’s a million things. I didn’t know he won the Nobel Peace Prize. I didn’t know what a rabid environmentalist he was. Through the bit of history you get in high school, you know about his hunting prowess and that. But I didn’t know we wouldn’t have national parks—we wouldn’t have 26 million acres preserved if it wasn’t for him. I didn’t know his incredible devotion to the have-nots, to the poorer people in this country. And I didn’t know what an incredibly popular president he was. I didn’t know that he used to regularly give speeches to 10,000 to 15,000 people and they would be enthralled. He would speak for umpteen hours. I can’t imagine that. There are so many things. He read a book a day if he was busy. And if he wasn’t busy, he would read three books a day. He had a photographic memory. He could quote a page from a book that he read five years ago, and he would quote it verbatim because he would actually see the page in his mind. He was extraordinary. He spoke five, six languages. He was incredibly well read, literate and a man’s man, obviously. It was very dangerous at times. We had boats turn over with actors in them in the rapids, including one that I was on. Luckily, me and the fella that was next to me in the back of the boat were able to jump onto a boat that was near us, whereas the other actors got taken down the rapids. One got caught under the boat. You were on CBS’ Elementary series for eight seasons. Is that what you’re most recognized for? No, in fact, probably Legends of the Fall, Practical Magic and things like that, Benny & Joon with JohnnyDepp—those are probably much more of what I would be known for, I think. Because as Captain Gregson, I had maybe four or five juicy episodes out of 24 every year, so I wasn’t always the most featured in that. Because of that, did you have the opportunity then to do other projects at the same time? No, because we did 24 episodes, which is unheard of anymore. We might have been the last to do that many. You literally worked 10 months straight, so by the time you tried to squeeze in another job, forget it, you couldn’t do it, it wasn’t long enough. It would have to be a tiny little indie and it’d have to be in perfect timing. So I think in that eight, nine years, I think I did one little indie and that was it. You played Paul McCartney in VH1’s Beatles flick Two of Us in 2000, and you met him. What did he think of your performance? By all accounts he really enjoyed it, and we got to know each other afterwards. We used to hang out—my wife, me, Paul and a couple of his friends. He’s an absolute delight. I had five weeks to learn about his whole life. It could have taken five years! Did you watch the documentary The Beatles: Get Back? I’m on day seven of the documentary, which is almost about halfway through, and I’m just savoring it. I don’t binge. I like to watch a couple hours of something because once I get past two and a half hours, I can’t take it in anymore. So I still have a couple more nights, and I can’t wait. You once said you have just the right amount of fame. You don’t have paparazzi following you around, but you can get a good table at a restaurant. I said that some decades ago. Do you still feel that way? When I was on the cover of People for An Early Frost, the first movie done about AIDS, that was a time when I was a young actor where, yeah, I found that very strange. It was a big deal back then. It was the kind of television event where 32 million people watched it in one night because we only had the three networks back then. I would not want to have the level of fame that BradPitt has. Liam is very good at putting a hat on and getting away with it. But still, I don’t think I’d want to have his level of fame. Because sometimes you really have to plot every move in your life as a result. You know what I mean? But Liam’s pretty good at blending in. I certainly wouldn’t mind having more fame in the sense that it would have given me more opportunities or chances to play great roles, if it gave me a chance to throw my hat in the ring for playing more great roles like Teddy Roosevelt. It’s all about that for me. I literally prayed the night before I got the script for Teddy Roosevelt. I said to the universe, “Whatever you send me, please let it use all of me, and all of my talent.” Because while I was very grateful to Captain Gregson and to Elementary for allowing me to be home more than I’d ever been in my entire life, I was feeling underused and wanting to really use my talent fully. Little did I know the next day that the script arrived in the mail with an offer: “Oh, I didn’t mean that much!” One of the nice things about your career is you’ve kept from being typecast. You’ve managed to play a lot of different types of roles. If you’re going to play near yourself all the time, you may have four or five good movies in you. And then people are going to say, “OK, all right. Yeah, yeah, we know that character. Yeah, we liked him in the beginning, now I’m getting sick of him. Give us something else.” There is only one of you, but writers write different characters, so you have to use all of you, but go with what the writers have given you the freedom to explore, and not be afraid. What’s next for you? It’s all up in the air. I’m hoping American Guest and Blacklight helps lead to the next great project. I did the Law & Order:SVU’s 500th episode. I was the guest star with MariskaHargitay, and that was a great experience working with her and that whole crew. Would you do a series again? You know, if I did a series again, I would want to do Apple TV+, HBO, streaming, AMC, etc. Twenty-four episodes, 10 months straight on network, where you’re a little bit more constrained with subject matter and language and all that…I’d rather go for the streaming thing. Next, Liam Neeson Opens up About Taking on a Comedy Role, Working With His Son and What He Wants to Do Next
