Liam Neeson Recognized a Horse from His Past on the Set of “Buster Scruggs”

The actor swore he'd worked with the horse on a past movie.

Liam Neeson attends the "Widows" premiere during 2018 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 8, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. Neeson recently opened up about a connection he had with a horse on the set of "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." (Photo by Kevin Winter/SHJ2018/Getty Images for TIFF)
Liam Neeson attends the "Widows" premiere during 2018 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 8, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. Neeson recently opened up about a connection he had with a horse on the set of "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." (Photo by Kevin Winter/SHJ2018/Getty Images for TIFF)
Getty Images for TIFF

Liam Neeson had a strange revelation on the set of the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: he knew one of the horses. The movie star told the crowd at the New York Film Festival recently that as soon as his equine co-star looked at him, he knew the two had met somewhere before.

In the anthology show, Neeson plays the driver of a horse carriage. “The odd thing is the horse who pulls my wagon knew me,” Neeson told the crowd. “You won’t believe it. I’m saying this horse knew me. He actually remembered me from another Western we made a while back. I love animals. When we worked together before I took special care of him. I fed him treats. Gave him apples… He whinnied when he saw me. And pawed the ground,” Neeson continued.

Bizarre as Neeson’s steadfastness may sound, Russell Crowe confirmed that he had a similar story about a horse. He wrote on twitter, “There’s a horse, George, who I gave the speech in the forest in Gladiator on. Years later he was on the set of Robin Hood and we would have a chat every day.”

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will debut in theaters November 16 before coming to Netflix, and will showcase the lifelong friendship between Neeson and the mystery horse.

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