Parting Shot

Liam Neeson

fans will go into liam neeson’s latest action film, cold pursuit— in which the actor stars as a grieving father seeking vengeance—with a particular set of expectations. And that’s fine by Neeson. “They’re gonna take a left turn when they discover the dark humor,” he tells Newsweek. The film is a remake of the Norwegian hit In Order of Disappearance, and it’s not your typical revenge scenario. Neeson plays Nels Coxman—yes, there are dick jokes—in a fictional icy Colorado town. He lives a quiet life with his wife, Grace (Laura Dern), making his living plowing snow, until their son, Kyle (Micheál Richardson, Neeson’s son with the late Natasha Richardson), is murdered by drug lords, prompting Nels to systematically kill everyone involved—in increasingly ridiculous ways. “I’ve done a few of these action films over the past 10 years,” says Neeson, who delivered an Oscar-nominated performance in 1993’s Schindler’s List but is now best known for the Taken franchise. “Usually, I’m ‘a guy with a particular set of skills,’” he says, but Nels has “no skills whatsoever. That was interesting to play.”

Taken turned you into an action hero. Ever regret that reputation?

I don’t know if it’s a reputation. I’ll tell you, for a start, they gave me a shitload of money for doing them! But Taken also gave me a chance to do more physical stuff, which I’d always wanted to do. I was a kid in a candy shop working with those stunt guys. My wife and myself giggled with embarrassment when it became successful; then, suddenly, we were talking about Taken 2. I thought, Why not?

You’re a vocal gun control advocate. As the one-year anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, shooting approaches, what needs to be done? I’m not saying the Second Amendment has to be killed, but I do think if our Founding Fathers were able to see the development of the shooting iron, they’d be turning in their graves. And yes, you can easily say, “Liam, you do all these revenge films where people get killed,” but a lot of them are like Tom and Jerry—seriously, that’s how I view some of them. When I was a kid, I loved Westerns, but it didn’t make me want to go out and buy a gun and start doing what Audie Murphy did in his movies.

You’ve been doing at least two films a year for the past decade. Why the breakneck pace?

I love the medium and the gypsy existence, and I still get such a kick when total strangers want my services. I’ll say to my agent, “They know I’m 66, right?” —Anna Menta

“You can say, ‘Liam, you do all these revenge ˽lms where people get killed.’ %ut a lot of them are like Tom and Jerry.”