Liam Neeson on why ‘Memory’ makes him think of Bruce Willis ‘every day’
nypost.comretired from acting.“My heart goes out to him. I think about him every day,” Neeson told The Post, noting that aphasia — which affects the ability to express and understand language — is especially cruel for an actor such as Willis. “It’s particularly poignant, isn’t it?
I wish him all the best.”But even as the Irish icon gets ready to turn 70 in June, Neeson has no plans on slowing down. In fact, he’s refuted reports that he’s retiring from action movies.“That was a joke,” he said. “That was at the Toronto Film Festival a few years ago … One of the Hollywood Foreign Press said, ‘Liam, what is it with you and these action moves?’ I said, ‘I was stubborn … [but] I’ve had enough of action movies.’ But I meant it as a joke.”Still, playing Alex Lewis in “Memory” — which costars Guy Pearce and Monica Bellucci — made Neeson confront the harsh realities that some face as they get older, including loss of mental faculties.
In fact, this notoriously tough guy admits to having a fear of Alzheimer’s. “It has crossed my mind a few times, especially when you can’t remember a name of an actor I worked with two or three years ago,” he said. “That bugs me.
But maybe we all suffer that.“In doing some research for this, I watched some very traumatic documentaries on the affliction of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and read some books on it of course.
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