Actor Liam Neeson is insisting that he is not a racist following an explosive interview where he said he once went looking to kill any black bastard after his friend was raped.

Im not a racist, he told Robin Roberts on ABCs Good Morning America on Tuesday , one day after The Independent published comments he made to a reporter about his handling of a friends rape nearly 40 years ago.

In the Independent interview, Neeson said he once carried around a bludgeon in hopes that someone of the same race as his friends attacker would have a go at me.

I asked, did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person, he told the Independent. I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping Id be approached by somebody Im ashamed to say that and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could, another pause, kill him.

Neeson, who described his past penchant for violence to GMA as horrible and a life lesson, said he shared his handling of his friends sexual assault with the Independent after being asked how, as an actor, he taps into anger and a desire for revenge.

I had never felt this feeling before, which was a primal urge to lash out, he recalled of his reaction to hearing about his friends sexual assault.

If his friend had told him that her attacker was white, he said he would have searched for someone who fit that description. Instead, his friend said the attacker was black and so Neeson went into black areas of his city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence.

Neeson, who is publicizing his latest film, Cold Pursuit, in which he plays a revenge-seeking dad, said he grew up in Northern Ireland during the political violence of the Troubles, suggesting that the atmosphere inspired his desire to inflict physical harm.

I had acquaintances who were involved in the Troubles, the bigotry. One Catholic would be killed, a Protestant would be killed. I grew up surrounded by that but I was never part of it, he said.