Liam Neeson’s Height Cost Star Wars $150,000
Lucasfilm spent $150,000 adjusting The Phantom Menace sets to accommodate the 6'4" Liam Neeson.
The Star Wars prequels almost made Liam Neeson change his name to Liam Kneel-son. Mashable India recently reported that all the sets built for The Phantom Menace had to be raised to accommodate the 6’4″ Tales of the Jedi actor. The door frames specifically had to be rebuilt so that the Irish giant didn’t bump his head.
The sets had been built high enough to allow all the other actors to pass through with no difficulty. However, the crew inexplicably failed to account for the impressively tall Liam Neeson. How a production crew can ignore the height of its main character is anyone’s guess but raising all the doorways for Qui-Gon Jinn cost Lucasfilm an additional $150,000.
Believe it or not, Liam Neeson isn’t even the tallest Star Wars actor. That honor goes to original Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew. Mayhew stood at a whopping 7’3″ and played the iconic Wookiee from his inception up until 2015’s The Force Awakens. Mayhew passed the role of Chewbacca to actor Joonas Suotamo shortly before he passed in 2019.
Suotamo is a slightly less impressive 6’11”, making him almost half a foot shorter than Mayhew. The actor still towers over Liam Neeson, though. And he’s not the only one.
While Neeson’s 6’4″ height is nothing to sneeze at, Darth Vader has him beat, or rather Darth Vaders. Both original Vader actor David Prowse and Rogue One stand-in Spencer Wilding boast a verticality of 6’6″. To quote the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, “Impressive, most impressive!”
On the other hand, of the Star Wars spectrum, you have all the actors that dwarf Liam Neeson. Without counting all the little persons like Warwick Davis and the late Kenney Baker, that have been a vital part of Star Wars over the years, there are still plenty of shorter actors. Daisey Riddley and Temuera Morrison both stand at 5’7,” and petite Carrie Fisher just barely made it over 5 feet.
Surprisingly, Liam Neeson single-handedly halting production with his massive frame wasn’t the actor’s weirdest experience on The Phantom Menace set. That honor goes to the Gillette razor Neeson had to use as a telephone. ILM is famous for using everyday items as stand-ins for Star Wars tech, but they outdid themselves with Qui-Gon’s comlink.
The communicator Liam Neeson used to contact Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode I was a Gillette Ladies Sensor Excell Razor with a couple of extra doodads glued on. Imagine being too tall to walk through the door and then being handed a shaving razor to talk into. It’s no wonder Neeson didn’t make another appearance in the Star Wars universe until last year’s Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Liam Neeson ended up getting the last laugh when it comes to his size, however. The actor has a reputation as one of the most…um…well-endowed men in Hollywood. Neeson himself has never felt the need to prove this rumor true, but given the number of other people who have commented on it, it’s safe to say Neeson’s “size” is proportionate throughout his anatomy.
