Neeson still kicking butt in thrillers at age 65
Veteran actor enjoys his time working with Spanish director Collet-Serra
NEW YORK Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra are connected at the hip.
“We put up with each other,” deadpanned Neeson, sitting next to the filmmaker who has directed him in four thrillers since 2011, up to and including their latest collaboration, The Commuter.
How long does Neeson, 65, see himself continuing to take punches and dole out punishment in such action-packed adventures?
“As long as I can keep making them with this gentleman,” he replied, “seriously.” The two have created their own professional shorthand, crafting simple yet effective narratives that hinge on their leading man’s ability to keep an audience’s attention through thick and thin.
The Commuter finds Neeson incarnating a regular guy, Michael MacCauley, a family man with a humdrum 9 to 5 who one day finds himself pushed to the limit on his train ride back from New York City to his upstate home.
“We seem to do these thrillers,” Neeson said. “(These characters) are not superheroes. The more we can ground them in reality — my guy is an insurance salesman; you don’t get more basic than that. He commutes for 10 years. He doesn’t have a particular set of skills; but he’s an ex-cop. So I think that’s a believable premise to start an action film with.”
Of course he’s an ex-cop. He’s also Liam Neeson, an actor closing in on his 100th film credit over a 40-year career that includes turns in Schindler’s List, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and Episode II — Attack of the Clones, Batman Begins and The Lego Movie.
But it wasn’t until 2008 that he became an action star, playing a former CIA operative who must track down his daughter in French writer Luc Besson’s Taken, a film directed by Pierre Morel.
“It was a fluke,” Neeson recalled. “I met Luc Besson at the Shanghai Film Festival and we talked about the script. I said, ‘I’m sure I’m not on your list, but I’m an ex-boxer and I love doing all that stuff if I get the chance.’
“He offered it to me. We shot it in Paris for three months. I genuinely thought it was a good, tight little thriller that was going straight to video ... Then Fox Studios took it and did an extraordinary job with it, and it made money. And suddenly at the age of 55, I was being sent these action scripts that said the lead guy is 35 years of age — scored out — early 50s.”
A decade later, Neeson is still at it. His age is even used as a plot device in The Commuter, as his character loses his job and is wondering how he is going to support his family when a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga) sits across from him on the train and makes him an offer he can’t afford to refuse.
But in person as on screen, Neeson won’t be pushed around. Teased by a reporter about his pioneering a new genre of elderly action films, Neeson shot back: “F--- off!”
Ultimately, he opined, it’s not about how old he or his characters are but how engaging. And though he may not be as light on his feet as he once was, he can still bring the goods to a scene when called upon.
“At the end of the day, you’re telling a story,” he said. “It’s about using energy. I find it with Jaume. It’s about turning it on when you hear the word ‘Action,’ knowing what you have to do, then switching it off after you hear, ‘Cut,’ because you’re going to have to do it again. Especially for fight sequences, which you have to do multiple times. It’s about keeping poised.”
And keeping busy. He mentioned recent stints with the Coen brothers (for their upcoming Netflix series The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Steve McQueen (as Viola Davis’s husband in the heist thriller Widows) and Martin Scorsese (in his 2016 film Silence).
“They’re great little shots in the arm,” he said of such gigs, “but my real work is with Jaume.”
Queried on what keeps him in such high demand, Neeson was at a loss, and characteristically humble. “I can’t answer that,” he said. “They asked for me.”
And like any good action hero, where duty calls, he goes.