'Really something else': Liam Neeson praises ex-girlfriend Helen Mirren as a 'remarkable woman'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Hollywood star Liam Neeson has heaped praise on his former girlfriend, Helen Mirren, and has described her as "really something else" and a "remarkable woman". The 70-year-old 'Schindler's List' star dated the English actress, 77, between 1980 and 1985, and lived together for four of the years.
Helen admitted in an interview last year, "We were not meant to be together, but we loved each other very, very much", and now both have reflected on their past relationship which ended 37 years ago. Liam was recently promoting his latest movie 'Marlowe', where he acted alongside Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming.
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'She's really something else'
While speaking to Entertainment Tonight Canada, Neeson jokingly said, "She got the check then", while noting 'The Queen' star had previously said she still loves him "deeply". "Helen is a remarkable woman, a remarkable actress - I should be so lucky to have spent three, four years with that lady," he continued. "She's really something else."
'We loved each other very, very much'
Helen said of her former love last year in November, "We were not meant to be together in that way, but we loved each other very, very much. I love him deeply to this day. He's such an amazing guy."
The actress spoke exclusively to the new AARP The Magazine about some of her previous relationships and how they all "had to have a shirt made by me". She told the publication, "I did make one for Liam, oddly enough." Actor Peter O'Toole and her husband Taylor Hackford, who she has been married to for 25 years, are the other two men who own homemade shirts by Helen.
During an appearance on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show' in 2019, Helen recalled the time she went camping with the actor. The British star gushed about 'liking' camping with Liam. She also told a story about them two having to share a "tiny tent all day" during a rainy adventure.
"I once went camping with Liam Neeson, because we used to date. We lived together for four years! (It was) Before Liam was the humongous movie star that he is today," she detailed. "We went camping in this tiny little tent, the size of this table, and we drove there in this tiny little car. Liam is like 6 ft 4in, his head was touching the top, and he was driving like this (making a slouched body shape). We camped in this tiny little tent. It rained all day, everyday. We were camping in Cornwall, then we went camping in France."
"I like camping", Helen continued before adding, "Well, I like camping with Liam Neesom anyways, and my husband (Taylor Hackford)."
The actress and Liam has spoken about their admiration for each other over the years. In 2018, the 'Taken' star revealed that he fell in love with Helen the first time he saw her on 'The Graham Norton Show'. "We didn’t date, we lived together for four years – we were a serious item for a while. Lucky me," Helen said. Liam said that he instantly fell in love with her when they met on the set of 1981 movie 'Excalibur'.
"Before I met her and we worked together I had read somewhere that if she fancied a guy she would imitate his walk behind his back and I turned around one day and she was doing that to me," he said. "I remember being on the set and standing with Ciarán Hinds as Helen walked towards us dressed in her full Morgana Le Fey costume and we both went, "Oh f**k" and I was smitten."
Neeson acknowledged he had to battle his fair share of competitors to win Helen's heart. "I think Ciarán was too but I was very smitten!" prompting a blushing Helen to respond, "I never knew that. You’ve never told me that before – it’s amazing," the Irish star said.
Liam met his first wife, Natasha Richardson, eight years after he broke up with Helen. Natasha tragically died following a freak skiing accident in 2009.