The iconic scene Liam Neeson “begged” not to shoot: “Please, can we cut this back?”
As we know all too well, Liam Neeson has a certain set of skills, and most recently, those skills have been to appear in countless movies in which he plays some kind of slightly grumpy, ageing criminal who has to take on some not very nice people with guns in order to fix a situation. But to give Neeson his due, nobody else does those films quite like he does, not even Pierce Brosnan, who also seems to be making a fine living doing them regardless.
It’s also important to remember that Neeson is an actor of quite some repute and range. For one, he deservedly netted an Oscar nomination for playing the lead role in Steven Spielberg’s incredible World War II epic, Schindler’s List, one of the greatest films of all time.
And second, he can also do comedy, as witnessed by his frankly amazing cameo in Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais’ Life’s Too Short and, you can bank on it in the reboot of the Naked Gun franchise where, later this year, he will be seen as Lt Frank Drebin Jr, son of the great detective played in the first three movies by Airplane star Leslie Nielsen.
So yes, initially, thanks to the success of his brilliantly convincing performance in Taken, the 2009 surprise action hit that spawned three sequels and led to the Irishman’s status as the de facto man you turn to if you need an actor of some experience to dispatch a gang of n’er-do-wells, Neeson is very recognisable as an action star. But he is also very capable of much more than that, as his career attests.
That kind of Taken-typecasting is something that irritates him to some degree, as he told Rolling Stone, growling, “Well, if I had a penny for every time somebody mentioned, ‘a certain set of skills’, I’m always like, ‘Oh fuck, here we go again’. I remember when we were shooting that scene, I begged [the film’s director] Pierre Morel, ‘Please, can we cut this back? This is so corny. I feel I’ve seen this and heard this in so many movies. ‘I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna torture you’. Can we cut this whole ‘I have a certain set of skills’, and all that?” But Pierre was like, ‘Trust me—it’s going to work’.”
The success of Taken, which brought in $226million at the box office, was a total surprise to Neeson, who felt the movie would go straight to video despite working hard on the many complex fight scenes in the film. Those fighting skills were also showcased when he worked with another legendary director in the form of Christopher Nolan for Batman Begins. Neeson performed many of his own martial arts scenes in the movie, having trained in a close-quarters fighting style called the Keysi fighting method.
One memorable moment involved Christian Bale’s Batman and Neeson facing off on a frozen lake, which was a real one in Iceland. It wasn’t an experience that the Irishman particularly enjoyed, revealing, “The noise that came up through the earth, and seeing this ice buckle and then settle again, was very, very frightening. And then they’d say, ‘Okay, go back on the ice again!’ So Christian and I’d be looking at each other like, ‘should we be doing this?'”
There should be no such issues in the Naked Gun remake, however, which will see Neeson team up with Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson in a film which should, fingers crossed, be a very funny one. The makers have definitely put a team together that should ensure plenty of laughs, with the likes of Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane producing and The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer on directing duties. The trailer certainly bodes well.
