The truth was a blow to Sarandon who relished her role in the juicy rumour
ACTRESS Susan Sarandon wishes rumours of a secret relationship with Liam Neeson were true.
The Oscar-winner was amongst a list of stars including Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart and Halle Berry after Neeson sensationally claimed he was romancing “someone incredibly famous”.
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Susan SarandonCredit: Getty Images
The Ballymena man was previously married to fellow actor Natasha Richardson with whom he had two sons, Micheal and Daniel, but he was widowed in 2009 after she died in a tragic skiing accident.
But with recent reports getting out of control, Ballymena man Liam finally silenced the gossips, admitting he was joking.
The truth was a blow to Sarandon who relished her role in the juicy rumour.
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Liam NeesonCredit: Getty Images – WireImage
And then, ‘I’m not going to tell the truth. I’m more than happy for everyone to think that.
“Who wouldn’t want to be in a romance with Liam? Oh my god, the man is perfect! He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s Liam Neeson, who doesn’t dream of that?
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Natasha with her and Liam’s two sonsCredit: Getty Images – FilmMagic
“I hoped it would run and run. I should probably have stoked the fires, threw out some cryptic tweet.
“Of all the rumours, of all the stuff written about me, that was possibly the best. So why couldn’t it be true? Really, I mean c’mon universe, make this one happen!
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Susan in Thelma and LouiseCredit: TV Company
“And then the truth came out. Oh well! Had to face reality again. But for those few days, it was pretty special.”
After rising to fame with unforgettable performances in Dead Man Walking, Thelma and Louise, The Witches of Eastwick and Bull Durham, the enduring Hollywood icon, 70, is now turning her attentions to another fellow silver screen legend, Bette Davis, in glossy new series Feud.
Based around the making of classic movie, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, the kitsch drama focuses on the bitter rivalry between leading ladies Davis and Joan Crawford, played by Jessica Lange.
In what went down as one of the fiercest battles on Tinseltown history, which included vicious rumours, on-set pranks and even physical violence between the two legends, Sarandon was keen to sign on because the feud represented how tough it was for women during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
She said: “I wasn’t interested if this was just a biopic, where they traded bitchy barbs and insults.
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Susan’s Oscar winCredit: Reuters
“I didn’t see the point in that. And Ryan [Murphy, creator] had initially pitched that idea a few years back and I didn’t get it.
“But when he came to me with an eight-part series, it became about the context of Hollywood, and how these two stars were controlled and manipulated by the studio heads, in a time when actresses were locked into these cast iron contracts and played against each other.
“It’s a commentary on the concept of celebrity and how Bette and Joan were pitted against one another, which fuelled the gossip columns.
Their feud was the engine that kept this production going. Which is how reality shows operate now, have two women butt heads and turn against each other.
Neeson had claimed he was romancing someone ‘incredibly famous’Credit: Getty Images
“But if they only understood, if Joan and Bette only understood that joining forces, they would have controlled the power.”
While times have changed, gender equality is still a red-hot subject in Hollywood and Sarandon, who heavily campaigned for Bernie Sanders during last year’s US presidential primary elections, believes there’s still much to do.
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Susan in Dead Man WalkingCredit: Polygram
She said: “There’s a long way to go. The key to success has been women developing their own projects with their own production companies, women like Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston.
When women are in a position to develop and produce, that’s where it evolves.
“But the studios are locked in ancient times, where the idea of dual female leads mean no sale.”
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Charlize Theron was also rumoured to be dating LiamCredit: Getty Images
The star goes on to claim her smash 1991 hit, Thelma and Louise wouldn’t get made today.
She said: “Because it is this female driven road movie, and they’re apparently a risk, financially — a story about sexual violence and domestic abuse which ends with the two protagonists going over a cliff.
“After we did Thelma and Louise, I kept hearing, ‘we’re going to have a lots of female buddy road movies’. It didn’t happen. And that made a lot of money.
Previously married to actor Tim Robbins, with whom she shares sons, Jack, 28 and Miles, 25 — she also has daughter, Eva, 32 from her relationship with Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri — Susan suffered a lot of flak last year during the presidential election after vocally refusing to support Hilary Clinton who beat Sanders to the Democratic nomination.
Sarandon instead threw her support behind Green candidate Jill Stein who amassed a tiny fraction of the electoral poll.
Consequently, she was widely criticised by experts who claims the actress ‘influenced others to throw their vote away’, leading to the Trump victory.
But Susan hits back at those claims. She said: “Pointing the finger was completely silly.
How can I be more influential than Katy Perry and Jay Z and Beyoncé? It’s ridiculous. We can’t focus on stuff like that anymore.
“This is the reality — we are currently faced with dangerous policy after policy, which has prompted and motivated this mass politicization.
Because right now, there are so many threats coming from the White House to the constitution, to the Bill of Rights, to human rights around the world.
“It’s time for action, we can’t afford to spend time calling each other out, ‘you were to blame’.
It’s over. Now we have to move on and face the issues at hand.”
