This USA Today interview with Spielberg contains an interesting little snippet about Liam Neeson that I hadn’t heard before.
The Schindler’s List star was lined up to play Lincoln in Spielberg’s biopic for many years before the part eventually went to Daniel Day-Lewis. The official line had always been that Neeson felt he was too old to play the part by the time Spielberg was ready to shoot, but Spielberg offers a slightly different spin.
“Spielberg went with Liam Neeson, his star from the Oscar-winning Schindler’s List. But the two had “subtle disagreements” about the portrayal, on which Spielberg does not elaborate.
“We just couldn’t come to terms on the story,” he says. “And the great news about Liam is that our friendship withstood some very, very light disagreements.”
“Liam is a friend of mine and Liam was committed to a period of time working with Steven. There came a moment for reasons known to both of them that Liam would do other things and Steven would do other things. But during that period of time whilst Liam was committed to the project, of course it wouldn’t have occurred to me to consider it.
“He has been in touch with me about it since and has given me incredible encouragement in the most generous possible way. When I was undecided about doing it he gave me encouragement towards that decision. I just feel I should say that. I can say unequivocally that Liam’s Lincoln would have been something I’d like to see.
“The timing worked out this way but it could’ve easily worked out the other way and I think Liam would’ve been quite wonderful.”
Daniel Day-Lewis on Liam Neeson, who was previously attached to Spielberg’s Lincoln.
![Spielberg and Liam Neeson talk about the director’s stylistic approach to Schindler’s List in this 1993 article about the film.
“It was a dry, dry book,” he said of [Thomas Keneally’s novel] “Schindler’s List.” “I thought if I could take the approach with a motion picture, I could present it almost like a series of events and facts and dates. And the emotionality would be much stronger.”
[…]
Before filming began, the director spelled out his approach to Mr. Neeson, who veers between leading man and character roles. “Before we started,” Mr. Neeson said, “Steven said, ‘There’s going to be no Spielberg bag of tricks here.’ He threw away all his cinematic conditioning. He got rid of all the colors he has amassed over the last 20 years and painted his canvas totally white.”
Mr. Neeson cited one scene in which Schindler stands on a balcony with the savage S.S. Commandant, Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) to barter Jewish lives.
“Steven kept wondering how to shoot it and finally said he was going to do the opposite of what you’d expect,” said Mr. Neeson. “He placed the camera inside the house, while we were outside, and sometimes we’d walk in and out of the frame. It was very brave and quite a genius thing to do. He kind of threw away the scene, but by doing so made it much more important.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9l4y3EWbg1r5cyr0o1_500.jpg)
