The modern actor Liam Neeson crowned as the second coming of Cary Grant: “He’s a handsome guy”
If you’re an up-and-coming actor, there can’t be many better recommendations you could get than one from Liam Neeson, after all, he’s an Oscar winner who stands as one of the highest-grossing actors in cinema history.
Aside from picking up the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar (literally) for his lead role in 1994’s Steven Spielberg drama Schindler’s List, Neeson’s performances in some of the biggest movie franchises speak for themselves: Christopher Nolan’s Batman, George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, and that’s without including his own hit action series Taken.
So having Mr Neeson talk about you as the next big thing must be quite the confidence boost, not that Joe Keery likely needs it. After all, he has had the kind of few years most people could only dream about, not only becoming one of the most sought-after actors in the industry thanks to his pivotal role in the internet’s favourite TV show, Stranger Things, but also as essentially the male equivalent of Taylor Swift in the pop world.
As his alter-ego DJO, he has released three albums, one of which, Decide, featured ‘End of the Beginning’, a song which has gone on to pretty much be the theme song to any kind of social media video, surpassing two billion streams and winning a Billboard award for ‘Best Song’.
Now, Neeson and Keery have combined for a comedy horror called Cold Storage, which tells the worryingly familiar story of a virus escaping from a secret laboratory, infecting everyone and in which the characters must go on a quest to find a cure before it’s too late (or before greedy tech billionaires ruin the world for everyone, oh no wait, that was Covid in real life sorry).
And Neeson seemed to be impressed by his younger costar to say the least, comparing him to one of the finest film stars of all time and telling The Tonight Show: “He’s very funny. You know something, he is the modern-day Cary Grant, I think. He can combine drama with comedy. He’s a handsome guy, he’s got great chemistry with Georgina Campbell, the other actress in the film.”
Quite some comparison; Grant, of course, was the double Best Actor Academy Award winner and star of some of the greatest films in history, including North by Northwest, Bringing up Baby and The Philadelphia Story.
And this is without having Neeson ever having seen Keery in Stranger Things, which is practically the only thing he’s done on screen over the last five years or so, so you can only imagine how effusive the Irishhman’s praise would be had he also seen him take on a series of demogorgons, presumably he would compare him to a combination of Jack Nicholson and Brando. Or something.
Neeson is currently having one of his renaissance periods, which seem to come around at some point every decade without fail, after his risky Naked Gun reboot paid off in spades last year. Stepping into the considerable shoes vacated by Leslie Nielsen in the original movies, the new film directed by Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer proved a big hit with critics and audiences, bringing in over $100m at the box office against a budget of less than half.
Keery, meanwhile, is going to have a busy summer this year, as DJO, he’ll be headlining festivals including Bristol’s Forwards, and he’s also wrapped filming on a forthcoming horror movie called Blood Covenant. Cold Storage hits cinemas on February 13th.
