Liam Neeson on Ted Kennedy: A 'Special Man'

Aug. 26, 2009— -- Irish-American actor Liam Neeson said today that Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died late Tuesday at the age of 77, was "a special man."

He also noted that Kennedy was "very influential" working to end the violence in Northern Ireland, a subject very close to Neeson and the focus of his new film "Five Minutes of Heaven."

"I have a very clear memory of being a 10-year-old boy and being taken to the ancestral Kennedy homestead in Ireland and posing for a photograph underneath the gable of their home with the American flag and the Irish flag up there on the gable," Neeson, a native of Ireland, told Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America."

"I met him a couple of times over the years, and he wrote my family a very, very beautiful, touching condolence letter when Natasha [Richardson] died earlier this year," Neeson added. "He was a special man. It's the end of an era."

Neeson's wife, actress Natasha Richardson, died in March at the age of 45 after falling during a skiing lesson and suffering a head injury. The actor said that he and sons Michael, 12, and Daniel, 13, are "taking each day as it comes."

"I'm still getting extraordinary condolence letters from American people that's deeply touching," he said.

He said that was part of the reason for his recent decision to become an American citizen.

"I've been living here for 20 years and America's been very very good to me," he said. "I'm still a proud Irishman, of course, but I've become an American citizen. I'm very, very proud of that."