Liam Neeson lost his love, Natasha Richardson, in the worst way possible. Micheál, the couple's son paid tribute to his mother by taking her name.
It's impossible for people who've lost their dear ones to ever forget them, even years after they're gone. Their presence is still felt with the warmth surrounding them. It's even harder when someone loses their parents at a very young age. The sudden emptiness is difficult to fathom. Liam Neeson's son, Micheál Richardson feels the same.
Even though 11 years have gone by since his mother, actress Natasha Richardson passed away in 2009, to Micheál it still feels like it happened yesterday. The 25-year-old told Vanity Fair, "I don't, even still, think that I've fully comprehended it, and that seems to be a similar journey to a lot of people I've spoken to. Fifty-year-olds who lost their parents when they were 12, 13…One day they're out gardening, and something comes over them and they just break down."
The Tony-winning actress was just 45 when she died. A holiday to Canada turned tragic when the actress injured her head severely during skiing. While Micheál was 13 at the time of her death, his brother Daniel was 12. The actress was on life support and Neeson had to take the hard decision to unplug it. Cosmopolitan quoted Neeson saying, "Her death was never real. It still kind of isn't. There're periods now when I hear the door opening, especially the first couple of years... anytime I hear that door opening, I still think I'm going to hear her."
Recalling the tragic phase of his life, Micheál said, "I think the pain was a little too overwhelming. I think the mind is very powerful, and subconsciously, or unconsciously, it can protect you. That's what it did when she passed. I just pushed it aside and didn't want to deal with it," as reported by ET Online. He took her name two years after her death to honor her.
Micheál revealed that though he's not watched the movies his parents stared in together, Neeson's Schindler's List is one of his favorites. The 1993 movie also earned the 68-year-old actor an Academy Award nomination. He prefers Natasha's The Parent Trap (1998), where she played mother to twins, both played by Lindsay Lohan. According to him it's "just based off of who she is."
Talking about her further, he said, "That's more or less what she was like. She was this sweet, amazing mother figure—my best friend. She had these amazing, big welcomes when we'd come home or she would come home. 'Darling!'" he says while trying to do his best impression of his mother and then continued, "I'm so lucky because I have her captured on film," reported Today.
Acting has turned out to be a means for Micheál to be close to his parents and the way they felt about their work. Neeson, talking about his son, said, "The acting profession is about many things, and one of those is rejection...and yet, with Micheál, acting is certainly in his blood." He added, "On his mother's side, that acting link goes back to the late 1700s!"
The father-son duo is appearing opposite to each other Made in Italy, which is quite similar to what they experienced in real life. Talking about the movie Micheál acknowledged, “The parallels were so apparent, that it felt like my mom, in a spiritual sense, had a hand in it."
It is a movie about an estranged father and son who come back to the house they inherited from the dad's late wife. While they fix it up for sale, they are hit with waves of memories from the past. He added that while shooting a pivotal scene in the movie, he felt his mother's presence when a butterfly flittered between him and his father, reported Page Six.
Explaining how he revisited his pain of losing his mother he said, "I think as I get older, keeping my mom more in mind and doing things to honor her allows me to remember her and to go through the grief, and properly heal."
References:
https://www.today.com/parents/natasha-richardson-s-son-opens-about-mother-s-death-career-t188216
https://pagesix.com/2020/07/30/natasha-richardsons-son-hasnt-fully-comprehended-his-mothers-death/
