Last year was the year in which the quiet fella from Ballymena played the big fella from Cork in Neil Jordan’s epic Irish tale about the life and times of Michael Collins. Along with fellow Irish actors Aidan Quinn and Stephen Rea, Neeson played his part in the movie to perfection.

The movie could not have been more different from the one which earned him his first Oscar nomination, but Schindler’s List and Michael Collins did have their heroes in common — both Schindler and Collins were men who rebelled against injustice and fought the oppressors, literally in Collins’ case, not so much so in Schindler’s.

A veteran of more than 30 movies, Neeson described the Collins role as his biggest ambition, and said he hoped the movie would explain a lot about the origins of the conflict in Northern Ireland. He retains a keen interest in the North, and gladly narrated a documentary about integrated schools in the province which was submitted to last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Neeson also lent his involvement to various events commemorating last year’s 150th anniversary of the Irish Famine. He and his wife, actress Natasha Richardson (daughter of Vanessa Redgrave), have two sons.