Liam Neeson backs Meryl Streep as Aslan in new 'Narnia' movie: 'Nobody better than Meryl'
You knew a take was coming: Liam Neeson just weighed in on Meryl Streep playing Aslan in the new Narnia movie.
Asked on the spot about the new voice of Aslan, Liam Neeson cracked up. In a Screen Rant interview, the actor — who hadn’t heard that Meryl Streep is taking over the lion in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew for Netflix — offered a playful blessing for the move.
“Meryl is playing Jesus Christ? Well, if you’re gonna make Christ a lady, nobody better than Meryl.”
Neeson knows the mantle he’s passing. He voiced Aslan across the 2000s and early 2010s in Disney and Fox’s big-screen adaptations:
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
- Prince Caspian (2008)
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
His quip nods to how C.S. Lewis framed Aslan from the start: in a letter to a young reader, Lewis described the lion as an alternate incarnation of Jesus in Narnia — a godlike figure who sacrifices himself and returns from death.
Why Streep for Aslan
Gerwig told Empire she had a very specific brief for the role and immediately thought of Streep, with whom she worked on Little Women.
“I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child,” she said. “And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one.”
At a recent Netflix IMAX sneak-peek event at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City, Gerwig also said many of the film ’s adult actors signed on out of a love for the books — and to support the younger cast bringing Narnia to a new generation.