Natasha Richardson Refused to Marry Liam Neeson If He Did This
Taking on one iconic role would have come at a high cost for the actor.
The world grieved with Liam Neeson when he lost his wife, Natasha Richardson, in 2009. The pair was a beloved Hollywood couple with a powerful bond that was hard to miss. Recently, however, Neeson revealed that there was one thing that almost came between the two of them. Before the couple was married, Richardson told Neeson that she wouldn't be marrying him if he took on an iconic role. Read on to see which character she did not want to see her future husband play.
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Richardson told Neeson she wouldn't marry him if he played James Bond.
On June 24, Neeson made an appearance on The Late Late Show to promote his most recent action film, Ice Road. The actor shared that at one point, he was in the running for one of the most iconic action films of all time—James Bond. However, Richardson felt strongly that she didn't want him starring in that role.
"They approached, I believe it was a couple of calls from Barbara Broccoli, who's now the main producer of the Bond films," Neeson said. "This was after I had done Schindler's List, which was 26 years ago. But I wasn't offered it. I know they were looking at various actors, and I, apparently, was among them. However, my dear departed wife did say to me … 'Darling, if you're offered James Bond, and you're going to play it, you're not going to marry me.'"
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Richardson passed away in 2009 after a skiing accident.
Richardson died in 2009 after suffering a serious injury while skiing. She and Neeson had been married over 15 years when she passed away. They had two children, 26-year-old Micheál Richardson and 23-year-old Daniel Neeson. Micheál is an actor who's starred in a handful of films, including Anchorman 2, Made in Italy, Cold Pursuit, and The Rising: 1916. Daniel has a clothing brand, Pine Outfitters, and a tequila company, DE-NADA.
Neeson opened up about his wife's death after five years of silence.
Neeson was private about his wife's passing for a long time. Five years after Richardson's death, he appeared on 60 Minutes and opened up to Anderson Cooper about his loss. When Cooper asked why he'd remained quiet on the subject until then, he said it had been too early before then and that it was "nobody's business." However, he felt that after five years, he was ready to talk.
"Now it's [been] five years and … it's OK to talk. It's important to talk," he told Cooper. Neeson said that in the early days, he was fixated on thinking about the way Richardson died, but as the years passed, he began to reflect more on how she lived. "She always packed so much into every day," he continued. "Maybe she knew she wasn't destined to be on this earth for a long period of time."
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Neeson knew Richardson wasn't coming back from the accident.
Neeson told Cooper he held no hope of Richardson recovering from the accident. He said the couple had agreed that if one of them were to end up in a vegetative state, the other would pull the plug. During his final visit with his wife, he said he told her he loved her and 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 where your family and friends will come." He told Cooper that she donated her heart, kidneys, and liver, so "she's keeping three people alive."
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