Liam Neeson is set to recapture the classic genre of film noir with his Los Angeles period piece, Marlowe (read our review). The dramatic actor famously found a second career as an action star after starring in the runaway surprise hit, Taken. Neeson recently sat down with IndieWire and reflected on his career including his milestone career detour being done as a throwaway movie to spend in Paris, along with the upcoming reboot of the Naked Gun franchise.
Neeson recalls wanting to do Taken as a throwaway little movie, when he was caught by surprise by its success. “I knew Luc Besson was behind this Taken script, he was a co-writer and he was the head of the jury. I was hoping to meet him and I did. I said, ‘Look, Luc, I’m sure I’m not on even your long list of people, but would you consider me?’ Anyway, push came to shove, they offered me it. 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? Working with these stunt guys every evening, I was in heaven. It was just a joy.”
It wasn’t until Neeson was met with praise by his own nephews that he thought he might’ve had a whole different monster on his hands. “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. [Laughs] This straight-to-video little movie! It’s nice to be proven wrong.”
One thing the renowned actor is looking forward to is showing his silly side as he exudes his excitement for filming the upcoming Naked Gun reboot. “It’ll either be the end of my so-called career or it’ll be another little avenue. We’re going to reboot the Naked Gun franchise. We’ll see. The script is being developed. It’s still very funny. There’s very funny stuff in it. They were all a series of gags. Do you remember Airplane? That was a series of gags, too. Peter Graves says to the kid, ‘You ever seen a grown man naked?’ The stuff! You couldn’t get away with that shit now. Leslie Nielsen, his whole career changed when he comes into the cockpit on Airplane. Peter Graves is piloting the plane and Leslie comes in and gives him some information. Graves says, ‘Yeah, but surely, we’ve looked at that’ or something. And Leslie Nielsen comes back in again and goes, ‘Don’t call me Shirley.’ That was the moment, I’m telling you, that changed his life, his career.”