Neeson 'weak' at getting his OBE

Liam Neeson has collected his OBE from the Queen.

He said he was "weak-kneed" during the ceremony and that he had not been as nervous since he met Muhammad Ali in 1981.

"The Queen asked me if the award was for theatre or films and I said I thought it was for both. She said, 'That's nice'," said Neeson.

His wife Natasha Richardson could not be at the ceremony as she was at the couple's New York home, looking after their two young sons.

“I’ve got a Green Card and I’m a resident alien in New York,” said the 50-year-old Ulsterman who grew up in Ballymena, Co Antrim

“I wasn’t in New York on September 11 when the Twin Towers were attacked but I think the city is still reeling a bit,” he said.

“Our local fire station in Manhattan is called Ladder 35 and they lost 11 men.”

Neeson starred in the title role of a film about IRA leader Michael Collins and unveiled a statue to him in Co Cork recently.

“I don’t want to get involved in Irish politics – I would get into trouble,” he said diplomatically.

He was an amateur boxer in his school days and later met his idol World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali, at London’s Dorchester Hotel in 1981.

Neeson’s break in acting came at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre. “It’s been famine and feast,” he said.

“Now I get a lot of scripts to choose from.”

He has already made more than 30 films and has just finished a new movie with Richard Curtis who wrote and directed a romantic comedy called Love Actually.