In Hollywood, it is better to be hypocritical than honest

Liam Neeson will never work in Hollywood again. To admit to having harboured murderous thoughts about black people, even long ago and far away, is to commit the sin against the Holy Ghost in today’s America. He will never be forgiven for it by the arbiters of morality and taste, let alone the social media mob. The cancellation of his film premiere in Manhattan is merely the beginning of a process of ostracism that, as he must have known, will end in exile and obscurity.

I had the privilege of working with Neeson in 2008. It was on a film, The Other Man, in which he played a bereaved husband bent on revenge when he discovers that his dead wife (played by Laura Linney) had been having an affair. In what I like to think of as the climactic scene, Neeson plays chess in an Italian café with his wife’s lover (played by Antonio Banderas), who has no idea that he is facing an avenger over the chessboard. Neeson uses chess to get to know the man he intends to kill.

My job as the “chess consultant” was to make the two antagonists plausible as chess players. I spent time with Liam and Antonio, and the games they played mirrored the psychological conflict. Using a published game of my own (the opening was, appropriately, a Giuoco Piano, or Italian Game), I tried to use the symbolism of the pieces (King, Queen, Knight etc.) to create a metaphor for the movie’s revenge tragedy.

In the final cut, most of the chess scenes were compressed: Sir Richard Eyre, the director, probably wanted to speed up the action. But in the course of working with Liam, I gained a little insight into this troubled, sensitive and open-minded man. To say that he is a gentleman would be an understatement: he is a thoroughly decent bloke.

Neeson’s exposure of dark, racist thoughts in an interview may have been misjudged, but it was certainly not motivated by anything other than the noblest intentions. His youthful experience of the Troubles may even have endowed him with a rare comprehension of the pathology of violence — but few in the United States have ever bothered to understand the complexities of Northern Ireland.

Neeson’s real tragedy, of course, happened many years ago when he lost his wife Natasha Richardson in a skiing accident. Now 66, he has never remarried. It is even possible that he is now living through a post-traumatic breakdown. The fact that he often plays dangerous, unbalanced characters has of course added to the present scandal. Neeson is a man who evidently believes in and practises forgiveness, but in the climate of persecution that descends upon those who voice heretical thoughts, he is likely to be cast into outer darkness without hope of redemption.

In a powerful new book, The Coddling of the American Mind, the American academic Jonathan Haidt has identified several “bad ideas” that are poisoning the minds of the younger generation. One of them is the notion that, based on political correctness, human beings can be divided into good and evil, a Manichaean morality that allows for no exceptions. Neeson has so far failed to apologise for exposing his past thoughts, and appears to be refusing to engage in the self-flagellation that is expected of those who have confessed to racism. He is indeed quite clear in his mind that he is not a racist — but that is bound to bring accusations that he is in denial. The fact that he won’t play the game will only add to the opprobrium that will surely be healed on him.

Liam Neeson is a great actor and a good man, but his is an unenviable fate. For giving the world a glimpse of his innermost thoughts, he will be made an example of by those who ordain that, where race is concerned, it is better to be hypocritical than honest. Let us hope that in the UK, at least, Neeson’s honesty will be met with the sympathy, respect and redemption he so richly deserves.