Liam Neeson

"In Los Angeles, it's like they jog for two hours a day and then they think they're morally right. That's when you want to choke people, you know?" - Liam Neeson

A Boxing Man from Ireland. IT'S not hard to picture Liam Neeson in a boxing ring. His six-foot-four-inch frame still supports the impressively muscled physique that made him Northern Ireland's teenage boxing champ. But the image of pugilist toughness is allayed agreeably by Neeson's face - his handsomeness, while undeniably rooted in the ruggedness of his features, is tempered by a distinctly sensitive cast to the eyes and mouth. The overall impression made is one of a man who could throw a solid punch if need be, but who would then likely help the recipient of the blow up off the floor, and probably buy him a pint, to boot.

His Catholic family was a distinct minority in the predominately Protestant town of Ballymena, but Neeson's recollections of his upbringing in the bucolic burgh paint a picture of a hardworking community that witnessed little of the sectarian prejudice that plagues much of Northern Ireland. At the age of nine, Neeson began taking boxing lessons at the All Saints Youth Club; it wasn't long before he had sustained a broken nose in the ring, an injury that was handled without benefit of a doctor: his trainer reset the bone himself on the spot. The mishap didn't deter the young boxer, though, and soon he had bested the lot of challengers All Saints could muster, at which point he began boxing on the amateur competitive level.

From Scientist to Actor.
By Neeson's late teens, fisticuffs no longer held the appeal they once had, so he forsook a professional boxing career in favor of attending the University of Belfast to study physics and computer science. As it turned out, his heart just wasn't in his studies, and he flunked out. For a time, Neeson worked as a forklift driver at the Guinness brewery, but, feeling obliged to get a diploma to please his parents, he again enrolled in school, this time to pursue a teaching degree. Ancillary drama classes he took while following the education track proved too distracting, however, and after two years, he washed out of the program, effectively ending once and for all his academic career.

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