Liam Neeson has had an incredible career that has lasted decades and includes Academy Awards. However, for the last couple of decades, his main output has been in the action genre. There has seemed to be no end to the stream on Neeson’s action movies, but the actor admits there must be an end eventually, and it sounds like it might finally be soon.
Liam Neeson has spoken before about an end to his action movie career, but so far that’s never actually happened. Even now, in an interview with People ahead of the release of Absolution, Neeson doesn’t necessarily indicate a plan to stop making these films. Instead, he simply indicates that the day will be here eventually. Neeson said…
I’m 72 — it has to stop at some stage. You can’t fool audiences. I don’t want [stuntman] Mark [Vanselow] to be fighting my fight scenes for me.
In 2009 Liam Neeson starred in Taken, a film about a man with a “particular set of skills” who goes after human traffickers who have kidnapped his daughter. The movie was a massive hit, generally seen as one of Liam Neeson’s best movies, and it spawned not only a pair of direct sequels but an entire genre. We saw a series of films in which older actors became action heroes. Denzel Washinton’s popular Equalizer movies followed Taken as did numerous much more forgettable entries. Does anybody but me even remember Kevin Costner’s Criminal? No, that’s probably a good thing.
But while lots of other actors tried to emulate Neeson’s success, Neeson himself has gone on to make more than a dozen action movies since Taken. He himself has had mixed results, and it’s hard to argue that any of the films have been as good as the one that started the ball rolling. However, Neeson’s own charisma is often worth the price of admission.
Liam Neeson has made it clear that he really enjoys making the action movies, which is why he has continued to do so over the years. It certainly sounds like if making movies like these forever was a real option, he would take it. At the same time, he’s not going to continue making them past the point he’s truly able to do so. We may not have reached that point yet, but certainly, that day is coming soon.
Neeson does look to be making a shift. One of the more interesting movies on the 2025 movie schedule is a reboot of The Naked Gun that will star Neeson in the role made famous by Leslie Nielsen. If action movies are something he can’t do anymore, maybe a focus on slapstick comedy will be a major part of this new chapter. That’s likely something he could continue to do for another decade or so.