Liam Neeson Talks “Fighting Wolves” in ‘The Grey’

Liam Neeson battles wolves in the new film “The Grey” and says that while the one he worked with were fake, they still seemed “pretty scary.

In the film, which hit theaters on Friday, January 27, Neeson plays a member of an oil-drilling team that gets into a plane crash somewhere near the Arctic Circle during their journey home.

Many die in the incident, and the remaining members soon realize that no one is coming for them. Unless you count the wolves.

“It was quite intense because these wolves were made larger than they are in real life and especially the alpha wolf was made to be quite mythological, quite sinister and I have to fight a couple of them,” the 59-year-old actor told OnTheRedCarpet in a recent interview. “It was pretty intense. Pretty scary, too, actually. Even though there were humans behind them, manipulating them, but they were still very real. There was no CGI there.”

Despite having to fight off the wolves in the film, Liam went on to say his character, Ottoway, maintained a “respect” for the creatures.

“He knows how they operate, he knows how they behave as a pact and he … most certainly has an empathy with them,” he said. “I also think he has a very, very guilty conscience, too, because he’s had to kill them to protect the workers in this oil refinery, you know, which I think weighs very, very heavily on him. But there’s a respect there, most certainly.”

“I think there’s kind of a mythological, almost a Greek tragedy thing is about to unfold where … maybe these wolves are about to get their revenge on their brothers and sisters that I’ve killed,” Neeson told OnTheRedCarpet.com. “And I know that and they know that and they know that I know that. Maybe.”

In addition to his battles with wolves, Neeson also talked about another enemy he encountered while making ‘The Grey’ – the cold.

“The first week was minus 40 [degrees], and I’m not exaggerating,” Neeson told Access Atlanta in a phone interview. “I remember my first day of shooting, my character is sitting in the snow after the plane wreck and I thought, ‘There is no way we’re going to be able to film this movie.’ It was so cold, equipment was freezing.”

Although weather conditions weren’t ideal, Neeson admitted they were necessary to elicit the required emotions for audiences to buy what these men were going through.

“When something’s real, you know it and you experience it as real,” says Neeson. “There’s no CGI for all that weather.”

Check out a trailer for “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson below:

Source: OTRC