Topping Spielberg’s List

He was a war profiteer and a war hero. He was chummy with the Nazis; he saved many Jews. Oskar Schindler, the prime mover in Steven Spielberg’s epic act of witnessing, had a little majesty and a lot of mystery. He remains that way to Liam Neeson, the screen Schindler. “I still don’t know what made him save all those lives,” says Neeson, 41. “He was a man everybody liked. And he liked to be liked; he was a wonderful kisser of ass. Perhaps he was inspired to do some great piece of work. I like to think — and maybe it comes across in the film — that he needed to be needed.”

It took a while for Spielberg to realize he needed the 6-ft. 4-in. Irishman as his Schindler. He knew Neeson as the vengeful Darkman, as a man accused of child molesting in The Good Mother, as the one decent fellow in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives. Spielberg had even tested the actor for Schindler. Then in January the director saw Neeson play the passionate, saintly seaman in a Broadway revival of Anna Christie. And that’s when he made the top of Spielberg’s list. The director told himself, “I want that great actor in this movie,” and a month later, Neeson was standing outside the gates of Auschwitz on the first day of shooting. “Trains and dogs and people,” Neeson recalls. “Bitterly cold. And me dressed in this wonderful fur-lined jacket.”

Luxury was scarce in William John Neeson’s early life. He grew up in the mill town of Ballymena, in Northern Ireland. A strapping lad, he was a youthful boxing champion. “I thought I wanted to be professional. But I realized I didn’t have the killer instinct.” Soon he was driving a forklift at the Guinness brewery in Belfast by day, and at night filling the Lyric Theatre stage with roles like that of Lennie in Of Mice and Men. In 1986 he moved to Los Angeles, where he was felled by diverticulitis, an intestinal disorder. That experience scarred him. “I can’t plan for next Thursday,” he says. “I’ll make a note of it and put a question mark after it. I don’t like to commit because you just don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s got to do with ‘the moment is now.’ “

Now is a very good moment for Neeson. Anna Christie brought him not only Schindler’s List but also a leading lady, Natasha Richardson, who became his lady love. They plan to co-star in a film of Therese Raquin and a stage revival of Miss Julie. “Liam has this gentleness and strength,” she says. “He can cry like a baby and fight like a bear.” As to marriage, Neeson says, “I don’t think about that.” Perhaps the new star wants to remain, like Schindler, an imposing mystery.