It seems like a lifetime ago that Liam Neeson signed on to play special forces veteran and very special father, Bryan Mills, in the movie Taken. That role turned the actor, whose career already spanned decades to that point, into an action hero du jour at age 56, and he’s spent the past almost-decade making pretty good variations on the standard man-with-a-mission premise. Neeson had a real knack for the genre, but alas, he’s hanging up his holster and refocusing on the unique set of skills that earned him an Oscar nomination for Schindler’s List back in the ’90s. Yes, the actor said at the Toronto International Film Festival that he’s done with being an action hero and is ready to rededicate himself to drama. “They’re still throwing serious money at me to do that stuff,” Sky News quoted Neeson as saying. “I’m like: ‘Guys, I’m sixty-fucking-five.’ Audiences are eventually going to go, ‘Come on.’” So, for those who were hoping for Another Walk Among the Tombstones, sorry. You’ll have to get your tall, handsome Irishman fix with his latest film, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House, until his final action thrillers, The Commuter and Hard Powder, come out next year.
