William John Neeson OBE (born 7 June 1952) is a Northern Irish actor who holds Irish, British, and American citizenship. He has been nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama.
In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film Excalibur (1981). He starred in five films between 1982 and 1987, most notably The Bounty (1984) and The Mission (1986). He landed a leading role in Next of Kin (1989) and rose to prominence when he starred as Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List (1993). He has since starred in highly successful films such as the drama Nell (1994), the historical biopic Michael Collins (1996), Les Misérables (1998), the space opera Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), the biographical drama Kinsey (2004), the superhero film Batman Begins (2005), the action thriller series Taken (2008–2014), the survival film The Grey (2011), and Martin Scorsese's religious epic Silence (2016). He also provided the voices of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy (2005–2010) and the titular monster in A Monster Calls (2016).
In 2020, Neeson was listed at number 7 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's 50 greatest film actors.