Los Angeles - Irish actor Liam Neeson said he was to take a break from filming after the sudden death of his wife, Natasha Richardson, the Hollywood Reporter said Thursday.

   Shooting for his latest movie, Chloe, was halted for the time being while Neeson, 56, took a break from his career, the trade newspaper said.

   The actor was working on the Toronto set of director Atom Egoyan's marital drama with co-stars Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried when he was informed about his wife's skiing accident on Monday.

   Leeson immediately flew to his wife's side in Montreal, where she was initially treated for a head injury, before the 45-year-old actress died Wednesday in a New York hospital.

   Chloe began shooting in February. In it, Neeson plays a man who is suspected of cheating by his wife, played by Moore, who hires a young escort, played by Seyfried, to test his fidelity.

   Neeson's most recent film, the kidnapping thriller Taken was a surprise box office hit, making more than 200 million dollars since opening in the United States in February.

   The father of two sons, aged 12 and 13, also has several finished projects in the pipeline, among them the horror flick After.Life and the drama The Other Man, co-starring Antonio Banderas and Laura Linney.

   In German director Oliver Hirschbiegel's Five Minutes of Heaven, Neesom stars as a former IRA terrorist seeking forgiveness. The film won the director's award at January's Sundance Film Festival in Utah but has yet to be sold to a distributor.

   Neeson also has been pegged to play US president Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's planned historical drama and has been considered for the lead in the international thriller Unknown White Male.

   In the title role, Neeson was to play a doctor visiting Berlin who suffers a mysterious injury that puts him into a coma.