Lian Neeson with his hands folded doing a flying motion and making a strange face GQ

Liam Neeson Does Amazing Impression of STAR WARS’ Watto

Originally posted on Nerdist | By Michael Walsh | Last updated Aug 4, 2025 5:06 PM ET

Liam Neeson played Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s seminal film Schindler’s List. He also starred as Brian Mills, one of the greatest actions stars ever, in the Taken franchise. His IMDb page is full of memorable roles spanning almost every genre. And if that’s not enough, he’s a no-doubt pop culture Hall of Famer. How can he not be when he has played both a Jedi Master and a legendary Batman villain? Now he’s added Frank Drebin Jr. to his list of famous characters. With his Naked Gun reboot now in theaters, he sat down with GQ to discuss all of those roles and more. And while there’s plenty of great nuggets in this interview for movie nerds to geek out over, the unquestioned best moment came when Neeson did an amazing impression of Star Wars’ Watto.

Especially because he has no idea who or what Watto is.

The star of the new Naked Gun film sat down with GQ to breakdown his most iconic characters. As you can image, we here at Nerdist took great interest in his reflections on The Phantom Menace and Batman Begins. He didn’t disappoint with his insights on the galaxy far, far away. Neeson mentioned how George Lucas told him he doesn’t like directing actors. He also talked about training for lightsaber battles, why his character’s death was a letdown, returning to play Qui-Gon Jinn on Obi-Wan Kenobi, and more. He also shared how Christopher Nolan recruited him to play Ra’s al Gul and why he didn’t expect Batman Begins to be a hit.

But forget reflecting on his character. The highlight came when he did his impression of Watto and his little wings. Not that he knows who Watt is. He just knew he was dealing with a flying creature that he had to interact with a lot.

Forget the wings, he nailed the face.

Will we ever be able to watch Qui-Gon talk to Watto again without thinking of this impression? Zero chance. When a pop culture Hall of Famer does a hall-of-fame impression how can you?

This article first appeared on Nerdist and was syndicated with permission.

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