Irish Eye on Hollywood: Liam Neeson Tackles Deep Throat

By Tom Deignan, Contributor
August / September 2017

As if there weren’t enough references these days to former president Richard Nixon, Watergate, and the impeachment process…

This September, as movie studios begin releasing their “serious” prestige films in the hopes of garnering Oscar buzz, Liam Neeson will play one of the most elusive characters in American political history.

His name was Mark Felt, but he was much better known as Deep Throat. Neeson will join fellow Irish thespian Colm Meaney and Irish American Kate Walsh (Grey’s Anatomy) in the suspense drama The Silent Man. Neeson stars as Felt, who served as the anonymous source to Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, all of whom eventually brought down the president in 1973 when Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. For decades, the identity of Deep Throat was one of the most discussed secrets in the corridors of power until Felt confirmed to Vanity Fair in 2005 that he was the source for Woodward and Bernstein (whose own exploits were celebrated in the cinematic classic All the President’s Men.) The Silent Man is to be directed by Peter Landesman, whose credits include Concussion as well as Parkland, which was an extended look at the many people present at the hospital where John F. Kennedy was taken following his assassination. The Silent Man’s supporting cast includes Diane Lane, Josh Lucas, and Michael C. Hall.

After The Silent Man, Neeson returns to thrillers with the early 2018 film The Commuter. Later next year, he will also star (alongside Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall) in the thriller Widows, with a screenplay co-written by Irish American Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn and Hunger director Steve McQueen. ♦

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