Liam makes light work of Covid
An Australian-shot thriller is the fifth of Liam Neeson’s movies to be released since the start of the pandemic. And, as Karl Quinn finds, he has filmed three more.
A‘I think it’s important for audiences to see that I get hurt, that I have trouble getting up off the ground, it takes longer.’
PPARENTLY, Liam Neeson didn’t get the memo about film production worldwide grinding almost to a halt because of Covid.
Blacklight, the action thriller he shot in Australia in late 2020, is the fifth of his movies to be released since the start of the pandemic.
He has filmed three more since that one too, and next month he starts on his next, a drama set during The Troubles in his native Northern Ireland. Slowdown, what slowdown?
‘‘I do like to be busy,’’ Neeson admits over Zoom from New York, which he calls home whenever he’s not living out of a suitcase.
‘‘Just before Christmas I finished my 100th film. I was playing Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe for Neil Jordan [Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Michael Collins]. That was quite special.’’
Neeson does occasionally make quieter fare such as the lovely cancer-and-marriage tale Ordinary Love with Lesley Manville, or the gentle fatherson story Made in Italy with his own son Michael Richardson (‘‘those were two films I’m very proud of,’’ he says quietly).
But since Taken breathed a late second-wind into his career in 2009, he has been primarily regarded as a man of action.
He turns 70 in June, though. And one has to ask, politely and a little nervously, how many
more beatings he can possibly take. ‘‘I have a couple more lined up,’’ he says.
‘‘I wouldn’t call them ‘action movies’ as such. They’re movies with a heart and a soul, and there’s action in them.’’
The former boxer is still in great shape but, still, it must be hard putting the body through the rigours of this kind of filmmaking.
‘‘You know, I’ve been working with the same stunt coordinator, Mark Vanselow, for 25 movies – great guy – and when we’re choreographing a fight we try to make it that I’m not trying to be 30 years of age, or even 40 years of age.
‘‘I think it’s important for audiences to see that I get hurt, that I have trouble getting up off the ground, it takes longer.’’
Well, it takes some of us longer just to get out of bed in the morning. (In fact, Neeson even
appeared to nod off while shooting a scene when I visited the Blacklight set in December 2020.)
‘‘I know, forget about it,’’ he says, laughing. ‘‘But I keep reasonably fit, you just have to. I think if you’re playing the lead in any film, whether it’s action or not, it behoves you to eat well, try to sleep well, and look after yourself because there’s 50 to 100 crew members waiting for you every morning.
‘‘You have to be there, you have to be on time, you have to look out for yourself.’’
If making a movie during Covid came with a slew of onerous new conditions, you won’t hear Neeson complaining about it.
Quarantine in Sydney – armed with Kindle, an iPad loaded with TV shows and movies, and a bedroom converted into a gym, with a squad of Irish nurses bringing him fresh-baked bread and scones – was such a doddle that he insists, ‘‘I was very sad to leave, seriously’’.
While shooting in Melbourne, he was confined to a production bubble until the day before he left, when he visited Healesville Sanctuary, an experience he describes as ‘‘breathtaking’’.
‘‘I’m sounding like a tourist now, but I’d never seen a koala, I’d never seen a kangaroo, and to feed a kangaroo off your fingers, I’ll never forget it.’’
That may sound uncharacteristically cuddly, but rest assured Blacklight is a classic Liam Neeson action movie – practically a genre in its own right – with the added bonus of a thoughtful conspiracythriller edge. ‘‘It wasn’t just a bang-bang shoot-’em-up, you know, because that’s boring. It’s just boring.’’
Still, there’s a curious line in the movie, which is directed and co-written by Ozark creator Mark Williams, when Neeson’s character Travis Block, an offthe-books FBI operative, suddenly realises that his boss (Aidan Quinn) might not be acting in the public interest after all. ‘‘In hindsight,’’ he says, ‘‘I suspect I made a poor career choice’’.
Ought we to read that as a wry reflection on the path of your own career, away from the awards-worthy stuff of a Schindler’s List to the biff-bang of the Taken trilogy and its spawn?
‘‘It’s funny,’’ he says, ducking the question like the old pugilist he is, ‘‘in [Neil Jordan’s] Marlowe, I have a scene where I get into an altercation and as I’m leaving I mumble to myself as I’m passing the camera, ‘I’m getting too old for this’. That was embellished with truth.’’
And yet there’s no sign of you giving it up. ‘‘Not this year anyway.’’
Blacklight is in cinemas now.