Of the many notable choices Gerwig has made in her adaptation was the eyebrow-raising decision to cast Meryl Streep as the voice of the lion Aslan, a Christ-like figure in the books who sacrifices himself and is later reincarnated. In the original movie trilogy, Aslan was brought to life by Liam Neeson, who, up until recently, was totally unaware of who was inheriting the role in Gerwig\u2019s movie \u2014 or, indeed, that another movie was being made, at all.<\/p>\n
Neeson was informed about the film, as well as Streep\u2019s casting, in a November 3 interview<\/a> with ScreenRant, where he appeared completely blindsided by the news.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry \u2014 this is news to me,\u201d Neeson said, visibly surprised.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019m grateful to be the one to break it to you,\u201d ScreenRant\u2019s interviewer said.<\/p>\n \u201cOh. Great,\u201d Neeson replied in a tone that can only be described as forced enthusiasm.<\/p>\n \u201cMeryl Streep is taking on Aslan this time around,\u201d the interviewer added.<\/p>\n \u201cMeryl is playing Jesus Christ?\u201d Neeson asked in clear disbelief. \u201cWell, if you\u2019re gonna make Christ a lady, nobody better than Meryl.\u201d He then gave a winning smile.<\/p>\n Watch Liam Neeson learn about Meryl Streep voicing Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s new Narnia adaptation in real time! \ud83e\udd81 https:\/\/t.co\/fgPmvtyPE8<\/p>\n \u2014 ScreenRant (@screenrant) November 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Neeson\u2019s remarks have, perhaps unsurprisingly, gone viral, and it seems that audiences have varying opinions as to what he said and what he actually meant. Some took his response to mean that he was feigning excitement about the project, while others congratulated him for his diplomatic response to the news, regardless of his true feelings on it.<\/p>\n \u201cPoor guy got blindsided and reacted as diplomatically as possible. Class act,\u201d one viewer on Twitter\/X wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s so awesome for this response,\u201d another said<\/a>, while another remarked<\/a> that his grin was the \u201cworst fake smile I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Still others pointed to a famous scene from Modern Family<\/a> where Cameron Tucker says, \u201cExcuse me. Meryl Streep could play Batman and be the right choice. She’s perfection. Whether she’s divorcing Kramer, whether she’s wearing Prada… don’t even get me started on Sophie’s Choice. I get emotional thinking about it.\u201d And to be honest, I\u2019ve got to agree with both Tucker and Neeson here \u2014 if you\u2019re going to have a woman play C.S. Lewis\u2019 furry Christ allegory, then who better to cast than Meryl Streep?<\/p>\n Greta Gerwig\u2019s The Magician\u2019s Nephew<\/a> comes to theaters on February 12, 2027.<\/p>\n Virginia (she\/her) is IGN\u2019s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she\u2019s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Neeson was apparently unaware that Meryl Streep is voicing Aslan in Greta Gerwig\u2019s adaptation of The Magician\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-952886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Virginia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1793838010_74_XD1zX2FT-1782150223173.jpg\")
<\/p>\n