If you are like me, there is perhaps nothing grander in a film than watching Liam Neeson punch a gangster lowlife, or a wolf, in the face. There was fear that audiences would never see that again as the 65-year-old actor had expressed that his age was a factor in his decision to retire from the genre earlier this month in statements at the Toronto Internation Film Festival. He figured that the film going public would catch on to his being long in tooth sooner or later. stating,
“They’re still throwing serious money at me to do that stuff. I’m like,” Neeson stated. “Guy’s I’m sixty-f******-five.” Audiences are eventually going to go: “Come on.””
It turns out that Neeson may have been a little hasty in his remarks as his apparent retirement from the action movie genre appears to have lasted less than three weeks. In a new statement, the Irishman has had a change of heart.
At the premiere of his latest film, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House, Neeson talked about his current stance on the action genre stating that he would be doing action movies until they bury him in the ground. So it looks like fans of Liam Neeson may well see him star in the likes of Taken 4 and The A-Team 2 even after he enters his seventh decade.
Neeson’s career is somewhat unique amongst Hollywood actors as he was only widely considered an action star after the release of Batman Begins and Taken when he would have qualified for the seniors discount at Denny’s. He then turned that cachet into other action roles in films such as The Grey and A Walk Among The Tombstones. His first major action film could be argued to be 1981’s Excalibur where Neeson played a sword-wielding Sir Gawain who was bested in a dual by Sir Lancelot over a slight to King Arthur’s wife Guinevere.
