Liam Neeson Says Helen Mirren Is ‘Really Something Else’ as He Recalls Their Years-Long Relationship

Julia Moore
15 February 2023·2-min read

Liam Neeson, Helen Mirren

Dave J Hogan/Getty; Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Liam Neeson; Helen Mirren

Liam Neeson has nothing but love for former girlfriend Helen Mirren.

In a recent interview with ET Canada, Neeson, 70, called Mirren “a remarkable woman” and actress when asked about their past relationship.

“I should be so lucky and be honored to have spent three or four years with that lady,” Neeson said of the Oscar winner, 77, whom he dated between 1980 and 1985. “She’s really something else.”

Though it’s been a long time since the two were a couple, both actors have always reflected fondly on their history together.

In November 2022, Mirren opened up about her and Neeson’s time together in an AARP The Magazine cover story, telling the outlet, “We were not meant to be together in that way, but we loved each other very, very much.”

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RELATED: Harrison Ford Says 1923 Costar Helen Mirren Is “Still Sexy” at 77: She’s “Remarkable”

Mirren added, “I love him deeply to this day. He’s such an amazing guy.”

Neeson has also said he was “smitten” right off the bat with Mirren when the two met on the set of their 1981 film Excalibur.

“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—,’ ” he said in 2018 on The Graham Norton Show,

After the two dated — and lived together for years — Mirren began dating director Taylor Hackford, whom she met during her audition for his 1985 movie White Nights and eventually wed in 1997.

RELATED VIDEO: Helen Mirren Says She and Ex Liam Neeson “Loved Each Other” but “Were Not Meant to Be Together”

Meanwhile, Neeson went on to marry Natasha Richardson in 1994, and the pair had two sons: Micheál, 27, and Daniel, 26.

In 2009, Richardson died from blunt force trauma a result of a skiing accident at age 45. In the years since, the actor has relied on his career to stay busy.

“I’m not good without work,” he told Anderson Cooper in 2014. “I just don’t wallow too much. You know? And I just didn’t want to — especially for my boys — seem to be wallowing in sadness or depression.”

Neeson’s eldest son, Micheál, changed his last name from Neeson to Richardson in 2018, to honor his late mother.

“It was a way to honor her and her side of the family and carry on the name,” Micheál told PEOPLE in 2020.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle given new ‘Royal titles’ – and fans are horrified

Jamie Downham
Wed 26 June 2024 at 6:19 pm GMT+7·2-min read

-Credit: (Image: Getty Images)

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry might have walked away from their Royal duties – but they have been immortalised in new artworks by an artist who also painted Queen Elizabeth II.

They depict the pair, who quit the UK for California four years ago this summer, as Royals from the past, complete with their own historic titles.

Meghan’s portrait is called Returning White Queen and sees her as Dame Elizabeth Grey, the politically influential wife of King Edward IV. Meanwhile Harry, 39, is Charles Edward Stuart – aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender.

However, not everyone was impressed, with one referring to the King’s recent ‘red’ painting, saying: “Worse than Charles portrait and that’s saying something.” Another reckoned they looked like they’d been painted by a child.

Prince Harry is depicted in the Llywelyn-Hall paintings as Bonnie Prince Charlie -Credit:PA

Meghan is shown as the White Queen, Elizabeth Woodville -Credit:PA
Others said they burst out laughing on seeing the paintings, with one chuckling: “Those pics have made my day,on the floor laughing with the tears rolling down my back.”

Artist Dan Llywelyn Hall explained the decisions behind the portraits, saying: “In Harry’s case, I have entered the story before he met Meghan the young party-goer with his future very much in the balance, a bit like the Bonnie Prince I have likened him to.

“I thought putting Meghan in the role of the White Queen, who was a Queen Consort and possibly the most influential ‘outsider’ in Royal history, might have a fine irony to it and not necessarily beyond the realms of reality.”

The paintings bring the number of portraits artist Dan, who painted the Queen at a sitting at Windsor Castle when he was just 32, to ten.