Liam Neeson was not always seen as a first choice lead for action movies, but over the last two decades he had carved himself a pretty impressive body count taking out bad buys in movies such as Taken, Non-Stop and Blacklight. While some of his earliest movie appearances included roles in movies like The Dead Pool, Neeson has had a hugely diverse movie and TV career, taking in dramas such as Rob Roy and Schindler’s List, comedies Love Actually and A Million Ways To Die In The West, and sci-fi and fantasy epics such as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Chronicles of Narnia and Clash of The Titans.
He recently reflected on his trigger-happy ways when sharing an anecdote about Taken with Screen Rant after being asked if he has any idea how many people he has killed on-screen. Although Taken was his first big leading action role, it certainly set the tone for what was to come in his future movies.
“I had a driver when I was doing Taken, the first Taken movie 15 years ago I think it was, and we were shooting in LA for the first week, and at the end of the first week, my driver as he dropped me off at the hotel, he said, "Mr. Neeson, can I ask you a question?" I said, "Yeah, sure." He says, "I've started to read the script of Taken, I've got to page 40, I think he said. It says you've taken the lives of 26 people." [laughs] I didn't know how to answer that. I felt quite embarrassed. They said in such a way as if, "Are you sure you've read this script? Because you do nasty things to people."
Liam Neeson Recently Discussed Possibly Retiring From Action Roles
Back in February, Liam Neeson discussed his “action hero” legacy on Today after he made comments that he probably only had a couple more action roles to do before he drops back into lighter roles. Clarifying his this, he explained that it all comes down to audiences wanting to see a 70-year-old man taking out dozens of bad guys.
“I turn 70 this year, so I’m still getting away with it. I think the action movies will draw to a close — they have to. Audiences aren’t stupid, you know. They’re gonna go, ‘Oh, f*ck this guy, Liam Neeson. He’s got to be 71, 72, 73...’ I’ll stop at some stage.”
However, it is clear that Neeson has more than “a couple” of these movies to keep him going at the moment, and is following up the poor-performing Blacklight with Memory at the end of this month, and is currently filming the thrillers Retribution and Marlowe, the latter of which sees him taking on the role of Raymond Chandler’s famous detective. Following this, who knows where Neeson’s career takes him, but with rumors that he could be about to star in a reboot of the Naked Gun series, there are certainly plenty of avenues for the star to take as he becomes a septuagenarian.