Liam Neeson Once Again Says He's Retiring From Action Movies
Liam Neeson has had a strange career. For the longest time, he was thought of as a serious dramatic performer – the type of actor who starred in titles like Schindler's List. Then came Taken, the 2008 flick that inexplicably turned Neeson into an action hero. Ever since Taken, Neeson has stuck with his action star status – a move that sometimes backfired, like when the bleak drama The Grey was incorrectly marketed as a movie about Neeson fist-fighting some wolves instead of the harrowing meditation on death that it actually was. Now, it looks like Neeson is ready to retire from action films Then again...he's said that before.
The statement about Liam Neeson retiring from action movies comes from an interview the actor gave to ET (via The Independent). When asked if he was done with action roles, Neeson replied in the affirmative, although he also added he has a few more action movies already in the works. But once those movies are done, he's ready to call it quits. "Oh, yeah. I think so. I'm 68 and a half. There's a couple more I'm going to do this year – hopefully, Covid allowing us – there's a couple in the pipeline and then I think that will probably be it," Neeson said.
Neeson's latest, The Marksman, arrives this month, and his next action-centric film is something called The Ice Road. He's also playing an assassin in an upcoming movie called Memory. After that? He's done! Unless, of course, he isn't. Because we've been here before. Back in 2015, Neeson was asked this same question and said he would probably make action movies for "maybe two more years," adding: If God spares me and I'm healthy. But after that, I'll stop [the action], I think. I'm in a very, career-wise, great place. [After] the success of certainly the Taken films, Hollywood seems to see me in a different light. I get sent quite a few action-oriented scripts, which is great. I'm not knocking it. It's very flattering. But there is a limit, of course."
However, by 2017, Neeson walked that back, saying: "It's not true, look at me! You're talking in the past tense. I'm going to be doing action movies until they bury me in the ground. I'm unretired." It's also worth noting that right now, Neeson's career isn't exactly as hot as it once was, primarily due to racially-charged comments he made during an interview about the release of his film Cold Pursuit in 2019.