Liam Neeson uses a cup of tea to assess the quality of scripts
Liam Neeson recently portrayed the famous detective Philip Marlowe in the new film-noir movie Marlowe. The character was originally devised by Raymond Chandler and appeared in several of the author’s most-celebrated crime mystery books.
Neeson told Yahoo about the process he goes through in order to assess whether a script is worth his time. “Our drama depends on the spoken word,” he said. “The spoken word depends on writers. So whatever that script is, if I get a sense that the writing is very good, then I’m interested in it, you know?”
The test Neeson puts potential projects through is to see whether he will become distracted by making a cup of tea. He added: “I always call it my ‘cup of tea test’, if my agent sends me a script, and I get to page five, and I think, ‘Oh, I must make some tea.’ That’s not a good sign,” the actor shares.
“But if I can get through the whole script,” Neeson continued, “And think ‘Oh, I must make some tea!’ Then that’s yes! It’s a good sign.”
Neeson put Marlowe’s script through the “cup of tea” test, and it came through the other side with his approval.
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