{"id":352385,"date":"2026-03-28T15:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/352385\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:03:13","slug":"ciaran-hinds-reflects-on-lifelong-bond-with-liam-neeson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/352385\/","title":{"rendered":"Ciar\u00e1n Hinds reflects on lifelong bond with Liam Neeson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar-nominated actor Ciar\u00e1n Hinds has recalled how he and fellow actor Liam Neeson first bonded on a trip to Holland in their late teens.<\/p>\n

“We were very na\u00efve and gauche,” Hinds told host Patrick Kielty on Friday’s Late Late Show<\/a> on RT\u00c9 One. “We were about seventeen or eighteen, leaving Ireland for the first time to meet other Europeans to do theatre and workshops. That’s where we bonded.”<\/p>\n

Both actors went on to star in 1981’s Excalibur, directed by John Boorman, alongside Helen Mirren and Patrick Stewart. “That was both of our first films. Liam had a lot more lines than I did \u2013 which was probably a good thing,” Hinds laughed.<\/p>\n

\"NEW
\nCiar\u00e1n Hinds and Liam Neeson first bonded on a trip to Holland in their late teens<\/p>\n

Hinds, who was honoured with an IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award last month<\/a>, explained why Neeson was wearing a T-shirt with his face on it in a VT clip shown before he went on stage to accept his trophy.<\/p>\n

He said the gesture came from Neeson\u2019s son Danny, who had secretly made the shirts for a family Christmas. “Two years ago, we were there at Christmas, as we do every year, and Danny had these T-shirts made without my knowledge.”<\/p>\n

“Christmas Eve comes, and there’s a ritual of dressing the tree. I’m last down, but they are all down in these T-shirts, but I don’t know this. So I start dressing the tree, and it took about ten or fifteen minutes of pointing and sniggering for me to say, ‘What is wrong with everybody?’ And I hadn’t seen that they were all wearing that T-shirt. That was, I guess, an early Christmas present, and that was revisited by Liam.”<\/p>\n

\"Liam
\nLiam Neeson sported a T-shirt emblazoned with Ciar\u00e1n Hinds’ face at last month\u2019s IFTAs<\/p>\n

On receiving the prestigous award in Dublin last month, Hinds said: “It’s very humbling, and it’s also a great honour. I got my sisters down from Belfast to diffuse the spotlight, and my wife and daughter came over from Paris. It was a very warm evening.”<\/p>\n

\"DUBLIN,
\nCiar\u00e1n Hinds receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 IFTAs<\/p>\n

He also teased the upcoming and final series of RT\u00c9 One’s comedy-drama The Dry. “The final third series is coming out April\/May. Nancy Harris has written it all herself, and she’s taken the time to fulfil everyone’s journey and end with a flourish,” Hinds said.<\/p>\n

Hinds will next appear in the Irish road movie The Three Urns, which will be released in cinemas on Friday, 17 April.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar-nominated actor Ciar\u00e1n Hinds has recalled how he and fellow actor Liam Neeson first bonded on a trip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-352385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}