Knew very little about Watergate scandal: Liam Neeson

Actor Liam Neeson says he understood the importance of Watergate scandal only while working on film "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House".

"During the Watergate, in the North of Ireland, we were going through our own troubles. So, I was kind of aware about Watergate, from the periphery of it," Neeson said in a statement.

"But Peter Landesman, the writer and director who was an ex-investigative journalist, a very good one, showed me the script and I knew very little about it. So I started doing a little research and I realised how huge Watergate was, not just for America but for the rest of the society," he added.

Neeson's film "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House" narrates the real life story of a former FBI Agent who helped expose the Watergate scandal. The biopic is being brought to India by PVR Pictures. It will release on Friday.

Talking about his role as Mark Felt, Neeson said: "I wanted to present a certain facet of the man. There was very little known about his private life, even to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two famous reporters who had a particular relationship with Mark Felt over the years never knew about his relationship with his wife and specially about the relationship with his daughter -- who ran off to join a communal.

"He was a man who could compartmentalise his life which I guess, being an FBI man for 30 years, you had to do and he was well-trained by J Edgar Hoover who was his boss."

Written and directed by Landesman, "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House" is based on a 2006 autobiography written by John O Cornor and Mark Felt himself.

It also features Marton Csokas, Ike Barinholtz, Tony Goldwyn, Tom Sizemore, Bruce Greenwood, Micheal C. Hall, Brian D'Arcy James, Josh Lucas, Eddie Marsan, Wendy McLendon- Covey and Maika Monroe.

For almost 30 years, Felt's identity as the "Deep Throat" who constantly fed information to Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The journalists were immortalised in the 1976 film "All The President's Men".

--IANS

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