Natasha Richardson remembered by Micheál, her son with Liam Neeson: 'She was a terrific, terrific mother'
Micheál Richardson, the adult son of Liam Neeson and late actress Natasha Richardson, was 14 when his mom died tragically, after hitting her head during a family ski vacation. Now 25, he still thinks of her regularly.
“She was a terrific, terrific mother," he said in a new interview with The Times. "What I wish is I could have just these adult conversations with her, these random questions about the industry or music. I was a mama's boy growing up and she was really my best friend. I mean we were all a close family, but [my younger brother] Danny was my dad's boy and I was my mom's boy, for sure."
He's grateful for her movies, especially his favorite, The Parent Trap remake.
"It was so sudden. When it's unexpected and it's just a complete freak accident, it really sort of messes with your mind, whether you believe in fate or not," he said. "It can send you for a bit of a head spin, and so you just latch on to the tiny little memories, whether it's her laugh or her energy in the room or her cooking."
He admitted that he had a tough time immediately afterward, drinking and partying while away at boarding school.
"If you've lost a loved one at a young age, years will go by and then you're out walking and it just kind of hits you," he said. "I definitely went through years of distracting myself from it. Our brains are amazing, they protect us to a degree, but they can overprotect us too, when we don't face this thing."
Eventually, he decided to go into the family business of acting, and he co-starred with Neeson in the 2020 film Made in Italy, which is about a father and son dealing with grief. By then, he had notably changed his last name from Neeson to Richardson.
"It was mainly like a homage to my mother, a way to carry her with me," he said. "Going into this industry, carrying her last name, it definitely inspires me and it is also comforting."
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