Liam Neeson Saddles Up For THE TRAINER

Ever since Taken became a surprise smash hit back in 2008, Liam Neeson has leaned heavily on action thrillers as his career experienced a nice late game bump. He's been in The A-Team, Unknown, The Grey, Battleship, Non-Stop, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Run All Night...the list goes on. But now the Oscar nominee is returning to a more subdued drama for the first time in a little while, and reuniting with a previous collaborator in the process.

Deadline reports Neeson is leading the cast of The Trainer, a horse training drama that will reunite him with his Michael Collins director Neil Jordan (who also helmed The Crying Game and Interview with a Vampire). David Donohue, James Villemaire, and Sully writer Todd Komarnicki are tackling the screenplay.

Neeson will star as John Moore, a premier horse trainer in the west of Ireland who, beset by tragedy, loses everything he cherishes and almost forgets to live. Into his life comes a teenage refugee, Nadya, who has fled her own horrors and now finds herself in a confounding new world. Their only connection to themselves, and ultimately to their own hearts, is a horse called Allabelle, who is about to prove that they may all have one race left inside of them.

Production begins in Ireland next summer, and it'll be nice to see Neeson return to his homeland for a quiet drama that presumably doesn't involve him gunning anyone down or snapping anyone's neck.