"They are the same size, weight and shape, with all of the accoutrements of what one would think a star should have – good voice, good presence, good eyes – and they haven't made it. It always raises the long-gone atavistic hairs on the back of my vertebrae. I can never quite figure it out, and I can only assume it's some sort of diabolical – or divine – luck."

Richard Burton said that. He never named the contemporaries to whom he was referring, but he might easily have been talking about Liam Neeson. Of course, there are several degrees of fame and it would be churlish to suggest that Neeson's has been a lacklustre career.

Far from it. Films like Rob Roy and Michael Collins, The Big Man and his Oscar-nominated turn in Schindler's List presented the 6ft 3in Irishman at his very best, but he seems to be fated never to quite join the A-list.

Neeson's charisma was evident as far back as 1981's Excalibur – his breakthrough – and The Bounty three years later, where he stood out in a mouth-watering cast of future Oscar-winners that included Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson and Daniel Day-Lewis.

He was tall, dark, strapping and handsome in a way that belied his unconventional features. Women swooned, as well they would. Helen Mirren became a lover for a while, as did Julia Roberts later. They understood what it was that Neeson had: he had 'it'. He was likeable and charismatic, mysterious and intriguing – perfect as a supporting player to a range of top-line stars that included Clint Eastwood (in the final Dirty Harry adventure, The Dead Pool), Diane Keaton (The Good Mother) and Jodie Foster (Nell). But he was wasted as the Jedi master in the vapid Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace. In Les Miserables he was Valjean – the hero – but was blown off the screen by the malevolent majesty of Geoffrey Rush as his nemesis, Javert.

If all this points to Neeson not being the equal of his co-stars, then that assumption would be wrong. Yet he has endured a peculiar career in which his well of talent has been largely untapped.

He seems most comfortable as part of an ensemble, as in Love Actually. Strangely, that was the case in Schindler's List where the repertory included Ben Kingsley, Embeth Davidtz and an unforgettable Ralph Fiennes as the monstrous Nazi Amon Goeth. Fiennes, like Neeson, was nominated for an Academy Award. Both men lost, but it was Fiennes who everyone talked about.

More recently Neeson has cropped up in Gangs of New York, Kingdom of Heaven and Batman Begins, playing second fiddle to his old mate Daniel Day-Lewis, Orlando Bloom and Christian Bale.

But let us not forget Kinsey in which, as the controversial sex guru, Neeson proved once again how he can utterly inhabit a character.

It is rumoured that he will next play Abraham Lincoln in a biopic that reunites him with Steven Spielberg.

Maybe the omens are right. If they are, then perhaps we shall see the
big man from Ballymena finally proving what we knew all along: that he
is an actor of immense ability and presence.

Perhaps, as Richard Burton said, he is about to make it after all.