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Liam Neeson and company tackle the Troubles

Actor's fight scenes were picture perfect

By
CAHIR O'DOHERTY,
Irish Voice Arts Editor

Published Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 12:02 PM
Updated Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 4:09 PM

 

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Liam Neeson and German director Oliver Hirschbiegel in Belfast filming “Five Minutes of Heaven”
Liam Neeson and German director Oliver Hirschbiegel in Belfast filming “Five Minutes of Heaven”

“It’s not very often that a director gets to knock around Liam Neeson,” Oliver Hirschbiegel, the German director of the Irish actor’s latest film “Five Minutes of Heaven” tells the Irish Voice and IrishCentral.

And it’s not very often you hear a director say something like that.

Hirschbiegel refers to one of the most dramatic scenes in the new political thriller about two men from opposite sides of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland starring Northerners Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt.

The scene features a knock-down fight between Neeson’s Alistair Little, a real life Loyalist killer, and Nesbitt’s Joe Griffin, the real-life brother of a man that Neeson’s character has shot dead.

“Both Neeson and Nesbitt are trained street fighters. I had to get that sense of them going for it. A dirty, rough fall down fight,” Hirschbiegel said.

“We didn’t have the time to rehearse it and sometimes that’s an advantage because we just let them loose. It’s not very often that a director gets to knock around Liam Neeson. There were real bruises the day after we filmed that scene.”

“Five Minutes of Heaven” features a flashback to 1975, in which we see the then 16-year-old Little assassinate Griffin, a murder that is witnessed by his horrified and helpless 11-year-old-brother Joe. The impact of the callous shooting destroys Joe’s life, and his family never comes to terms with their loss.

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