The 2008 role Liam Neeson wishes he’d never played: “They should have got some other actor”

Liam Neeson has said he was miscast as Fujimoto in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film *Ponyo*. After seeing the finished film, he felt his voice did not suit the character and said another actor should have been chosen. His comments matter because they are a rare example of the actor publicly wishing he had not taken a role.

Neeson recorded Fujimoto for the English version, released in August 2009, after the film first appeared in Japan in 2008. In the same year, he voiced Aslan in *The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian* and starred in *Taken*, whose success helped reshape his career around action films. He said voicing Fujimoto had been thrilling, but the character did not sit well with him once he watched the film.