SNIPPET: Westerns were a staple of Irish cinemas when Liam NEESON was growing up in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, in the 1950s. Per Liam - "Didn't we all play cowboys and Indians back then? My idol was Audie Murphy, who was the most decorated U.S. soldier in World War II. He made dozens of westerns, mostly B-movies, and I saw most of them as a boy in Ireland. NEESON, standing six foot four, is one of the most adventurous and versatile thespians to come out of Ireland. His career includes such memorable movies as "Schindler's List" and "Michael Collins." Unlike some actors who seem to be playing minor variations on the same role throughout their careers, NEESON has firmly resisted being typecast. He has appeared in over sixty movies and in a remarkably diverse range of roles, to include a runaway Christian Brother, an underground filmmaker, an IRA gunman, a hillbilly Kentuckian, an ageing rocker, a mute vagrant, a boxer, a sculptor, and a ghost. He has portrayed real-life people from Oskar Schindler to Michael Collins to Alfred Kinsey, and Steven Spielberg has cast him in the leading role of a movie about Abraham Lincoln, to be filmed in 2009.