Helen Mirren speaks about her love for ex-boyfriend Liam Neeson in a new interview with AARP The Magazine.
Mirren, who married Taylor Hackford in 1997, was in a relationship with Neeson between 1980 and 1985.
The 77-year-old actress says: “We loved each other. We were not meant to be together in that way, but we loved each other very, very much. I love him deeply to this day. He’s such an amazing guy.”
Neeson came up in conversation when Mirren was discussing her love of making clothing.
She tells the publication, “I make clothes myself, extremely badly, and then I hardly ever wear them because they’re so awful. But I like the process of making them.”
The star adds, “I’m always trying to make the perfect sarong, for example,” laughing.
She insists, “The perfect sarong hangs well. You just hook it on, and it’s just perfect.”
Mirren then says she “went through a phase of making men’s shirts,” adding: “I really appreciate what it takes to put a placket on a shirt and to put those buttonholes in. It’s really difficult to put that pocket in exactly the right place, then stitch it. And that was all done by hand.
“The artist’s animal nature of that I find really wonderful.”
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Mirren continues, “All my boyfriends had to have a shirt made by me,” which is where she says Neeson was among the lucky guys.
“I did make one for Liam, oddly enough,” she reveals.
Mirren and Neeson spoke about their romance as they both appeared on “The Graham Norton Show” in 2018.
Mirren admitted she and Neeson got “serious” after meeting on the set of 1981 flick “Excalibur”.
When asked about dating Neeson, Mirren replied: “We didn’t date, we lived together for four years — we were a serious item for a while. Lucky me!”
Neeson then added of the moment he found out she was interested in him: “Before I met her and we worked together I had read somewhere that if she fancied a guy she would imitate his walk behind his back. I turned around one day and she was doing that to me.”
The actor said of their first encounter: “I remember being on the set and standing with Ciaran Hinds as Helen walked towards us dressed in her full Morgan le Fay costume and we both went, ‘Oh, f**k’ and I was smitten.
“I think Ciaran was too but I was very smitten,” he added.
