HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Liam Neeson tried to escape through work after wife Natasha Richardson died from a tragic ski accident two years ago.
"I just think I was still in a bit of shock," the 58-year-old actor recalls in the March issue of Esquire. "But it's kind of a no-brainer to go back to that work. It's a wee bit of a blur, but I know the tragedy hadn't just really smacked me yet."
"I think I survived by running away some," he adds. "Running away to work."
But going back to work shooting Chloe turned out to be only a temporary escape.
"That's the weird thing about grief," he explains. "You can't prepare for it. You think you're gonna cry and get it over with. You make those plans, but they never work."
Neeson struggles in the interview to recall the moment he rushed to the hospital to be by Richardson's side.
"I walked into the emergency — it's like seventy, eighty people, broken arms, black eyes, all that — and for the first time in years, nobody recognizes me," he remembers. "Not the nurses. The patients. No one. And I've come all this way, and they won't let me see her. And I'm looking past them, starting to push — I'm like, F---, I know my wife's back there someplace. I pull out a cell phone — and a security guard comes up, starts saying, 'Sorry, sir, you can't use that in here,' and I'm about to ask him if he knew me, when he disappears to answer a phone call or something. So I went outside. It's freezing cold, and I thought, What am I gonna do? How am I going to get past the security?
"And I see two nurses, ladies, having a cigarette. I walk up, and luckily one of them recognizes me. And I'll tell you, I was so f---ing grateful — for the first time in I don't know how long — to be recognized. And this one, she says, 'Go in that back door there.' She points me to it. 'Make a left. She's in a room there.' So I get there, just in time."
It was then that his life changed forever.
"And all these young doctors, who look all of eighteen years of age, they tell me the worst," Neeson says, pursing his lips. "The worst."
Two years later, Neeson is still struggling to cope with his wife's death.
"It hits you in the middle of the night — well, it hits me in the middle of the night," he says. "I'm out walking. I'm feeling quite content. And it's like suddenly, boom. It's like you've just done that in your chest."
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