Neeson plays pioneering sex scientist Alfred Kinsey in his best performance since Michael Collins and Schindler's List. Surprisingly overlooked by the Academy for Kinsey, Neeson will next be seen in two major blockbusters this year. Of the two roles he says, "In Kingdom Of Heaven, I play a crusty old warrior who is Orlando Bloom's father. And in Batman Returns, I play a mentor to Bruce Wayne - I teach him a few skills."

Do you think Kinsey crossed the line between the objectivity of being a scientist and the subjectivity of somebody who was perhaps trying to justify his own lifestyle?

I don't think he was justifying his own lifestyle. He was obviously bisexual. From my research he only really discovered that in his late 20s. I believe he grew up with enormous fear, guilt and confusion, to the point of when he found his mission in life he was determined that young people especially wouldn't have to go through what he did. I think that was his springboard.

From your research was there anything missing in the film that maybe should have been in it?

I thought Bill [Condon, director] covered every base, but there was one scene I was surprised that has gone. After he talks to the paedophile, there's a scene with Laura [Linney] and I in bed. Where he's deciding to use this information this man has given him. Laura's saying he shouldn't, and he should throw it away. And because Kinsey is a collector, and this freak had these obscene measurements - Kinsey would have salivated at that stuff; it was science to him.

Kinsey's father frowned upon his son's scientific pursuits, and never took them seriously. Did your father think that about your acting when you were young?

Very much so. It was something you did in your time off - amateur dramatics. It certainly wasn't something you'd entertain the thought you might be paid for.

Did you, like Kinsey, have a day of reckoning with you father?

I did. I had an extraordinary day actually. I remember it was 1975, and I was accepted into Northern Ireland's only repertoire theatre - Belfast Lyric theatre. It was a time when bombs and explosions were going off all over the city. I sneaked a day off work in my hometown to come up to Belfast to do an audition without telling my parents - I was living at home at the time. And that afternoon I got accepted into the theatre, and I remember coming back on the train to my home, which was 30 miles away, stopping in at various pubs along the way, with this equity contract, and I arrived back at midnight. My parents were white as sheets. I was stupid in that day and age, to not telephone, so they literally didn't speak to me for a week, because of the shock. I could tell when I walked into the house how dumb I'd been. But I was overjoyed my life was going to change, I was going to get paid for acting.

And get paid pretty well...

Well, it's still a matter of is Gibson going to do it? Is Clooney going to do it? Tick them off, and then you get to me.

Kinsey is released in UK cinemas on Friday 4th March 2005.