Liam Neeson Recalls How His Family ‘Pulled Together’ After Wife Natasha Richardson’s Tragic Death (Exclusive)

Liam Neeson will forever be grateful to his family, who “pulled together” after his wife Natasha Richardson died in 2009.

The Parent Trap actress was just 45 when she died from a brain hemorrhage she suffered after a skiing accident. “It was a horrible thing to happen,” Neeson, 72, says in the new issue of PEOPLE.

The actor, who met Richardson while working on the 1993 Broadway production of Anna Christie and married her in 1994, was suddenly a single father to their two young teens, Micheál and Daniel, now 29 and 28, respectively.

At the time, his primary focus became “making sure they were okay,” Neeson recalls. That and working. Neeson, raised by parents with modest means in Northern Ireland, says he felt “that Irish working-class need to just take any job that was going.”

His mother-in-law, Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, 87, and sister-in-law Joely Richardson, 59, stepped up to help. “Everybody just pulled together. Vanessa and Joely were extraordinary,” he recalls. “We were fortunate in lots of ways.”

Fifteen years later, Neeson remains close with his sons, who live near their dad in New York. Fly-fishing used to be a favorite pastime, but these days they’re more likely to catch a movie or watch TV together (Nicole Kidman’s Netflix hit The Perfect Couple was Dad’s recent favorite).

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Neeson also acted opposite Micheál in the 2020 comedy-drama Made in Italy. The fact that they’re carrying on the family tradition would greatly please his late wife, says Neeson: “I think Natasha would be proud. I hope so.”

In this week’s issue, the Oscar-nominated star of Schindler’s List and the Star Wars franchise also opens up about his iconic career, including how he became an action star in midlife thanks to the 2009 movie Taken.

“It just seemed to have touched something in the psychic nerve of moviegoing audiences,” he says.

His latest in the action genre is Absolution, a drama about a low-level Boston criminal and boxer diagnosed with CTE. As he struggles to accept his new reality, he aims to make amends with his family while also settling the score with some very bad men.

Absolution is in theaters Nov. 1.

For more on Liam Neeson, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

Source people.com