Oscar-nominated actor Ciarán Hinds has recalled how he and fellow actor Liam Neeson first bonded on a trip to Holland in their late teens.
"We were very naïve and gauche," Hinds told host Patrick Kielty on Friday's Late Late Show on RTÉ One. "We were about seventeen or eighteen, leaving Ireland for the first time to meet other Europeans to do theatre and workshops. That's where we bonded."
Both actors went on to star in 1981's Excalibur, directed by John Boorman, alongside Helen Mirren and Patrick Stewart. "That was both of our first films. Liam had a lot more lines than I did – which was probably a good thing," Hinds laughed.
Hinds, who was honoured with an IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award last month, explained why Neeson was wearing a T-shirt with his face on it in a VT clip shown before he went on stage to accept his trophy.
He said the gesture came from Neeson’s son Danny, who had secretly made the shirts for a family Christmas. "Two years ago, we were there at Christmas, as we do every year, and Danny had these T-shirts made without my knowledge."
"Christmas Eve comes, and there's a ritual of dressing the tree. I'm last down, but they are all down in these T-shirts, but I don't know this. So I start dressing the tree, and it took about ten or fifteen minutes of pointing and sniggering for me to say, 'What is wrong with everybody?' And I hadn't seen that they were all wearing that T-shirt. That was, I guess, an early Christmas present, and that was revisited by Liam."
On receiving the prestigous award in Dublin last month, Hinds said: "It's very humbling, and it's also a great honour. I got my sisters down from Belfast to diffuse the spotlight, and my wife and daughter came over from Paris. It was a very warm evening."
He also teased the upcoming and final series of RTÉ One's comedy-drama The Dry. "The final third series is coming out April/May. Nancy Harris has written it all herself, and she's taken the time to fulfil everyone's journey and end with a flourish," Hinds said.
