Liam Neeson will be taking a pause on starring in action films. The “Taken” icon, who has led the franchise since 2009, told People that he is planning to hang up his stunt-heavy leading roles in the next year or so. “Maybe the end of next year,” Neeson said of when he would exit the genre, referencing sometime in 2025. “I think that’s it.”
While Neeson is currently promoting yet another revenge-centric action film with “Absolution,” the actor admitted he is starting to feel his age. “I’m 72 — it has to stop at some stage,” Neeson said. “You can’t fool audiences.”
The “Love Actually” and “Schindler’s List” star added that the more intense stunt work required for his films is performed by Neeson’s longtime collaborator Mark Vanselow. Yet Neeson still does his own fight scenes, and when he no longer can (or at least, when he can no longer do them convincingly), that’s when the actor has pinpointed his action movie retirement. “I don’t want Mark to be fighting my fight scenes for me,” he said.
Until then, Neeson is set to lead action-comedy “The Naked Gun” reboot alongside Pamela Anderson. The original films starred Leslie Nielsen as hapless detective Frank Drebin whose cases always become a comedy of errors. Neeson will now play the son of Nielsen’s character in a sequel directed by “SNL” and Lonely Island alum Akiva Schaffer, with Seth MacFarlane producing.
Neeson said that it’s a “silly” movie, and he is even still unsure if the comedy lands. “Whether I can carry it or not, I honestly don’t know,” Neeson said.
Neeson told IndieWire in 2023 while celebrating his 100th film role with “Marlowe” that “Taken” was a turning point in his career. “I remember thinking, ‘It’s going to go straight to video, it doesn’t matter, it’s just such a simple little story. But it’s three months in Paris. How bad can that be?’” Neeson said. “Working with these stunt guys every evening, I was in heaven. It was just a joy.”
He continued, “Then the film came out and did well in France first. Then it went to South Korea. Then I remember getting a couple calls from my nephews in Ireland, ‘Hi, Uncle Liam. We saw your film.’ ‘What one was that?’ ‘Uh, “Taken.”‘ I said, ‘You couldn’t have seen that. It’s not out yet.’ ‘Oh, well, we downloaded it.’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s the end of that.’ And then Fox took it in 2009 and they just did a really cool trailer, started showing it at sporting events and stuff. I think it opened at number two or number three and it sort of hovered there and went up and down a bit and then up a bit. It was great. This straight-to-video little movie! It’s nice to be proven wrong.”
