Liam Neeson has spoken out about the reason he refuses to watch the saucy film series that made Dakota Johnson a household name.
If you’ve not been living under a rock for the past decade and a half, you’ll have come across the Fifty Shades of Grey films and books written by E. L. James in 2011 until 2021.
What started out as a fanfiction of Twilight, originally named Masters of the Universe, James’s story about a rich CEO with a penchant for ‘beating’ women that look like his mother (don’t ask), became a hit with women and men around the globe.
Starring The Fall’s Jamie Dornan as main love interest Christian Grey, and Johnson as sexually naive Anastasia Steele, it’s almost impossible to find someone who hasn’t see at least one of the four flicks.
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Until you talk to Neeson, that is.
The Taken star was NOT taken with the idea of peeping at any of the movies, and explained why during an old appearance on The Graham Norton Show eight years ago.
In the interview, Neeson, Dornan and Helen Mirren watched a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey as Dornan was there to promote one of the films.
Afterward, Neeson revealed that he’d never seen one, and the reason comes down to old memories he shares of Johnson.
He told the celebrities on the red sofa: “You know I have to say, I love this guy from The Fall which is fantastic series. I can’t watch those films [Fifty Shades of Grey] because I made a movie with Dakota’s mum many years ago and I used to swing Dakota around at the age of two. So I can’t- I just can’t see her as an adult, so forgive me.”
Dornan then cheekily responded: “I think I’ve swung her around a wee bit too.”
The reason Neeson had gotten so close with Johnson as a child, was because of his 1992 flick with Johnson’s mum, Melanie Griffith.
The pair worked on Shining Through, a film directed by David Seltzer and starred Michael Douglas as it portrayed Nazi Germany in 1940.
Linda Voss, who was ultimately played by Griffith, goes to work for Ed Leland, who unbeknownst to her is a spy.
However, a turn of events leads her to infiltrate Berlin in an undercover operation, where she meets Franze-Otto Dietrich (Neeson).
Anyway, it’s pretty remarkable he’s not watched the film, over thirty years after meeting Johnson.
Topics: Celebrity, The Graham Norton Show, Film
Britt Jones