Liam Neeson Says He'll Retire From Action Movies in Two Years

Movie Liam Neeson by Ben Pearson

Though Liam Neeson starred in Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Batman Begins in the late 90s and mid-2000s, it wasn't until 2008's Taken that he fully re-established himself as an ass-kicking leading man. That movie kick-started a whole new phase to his career, setting him down the path of starring in Taken 2 & 3, The A-Team, Unknown, The Grey, Non-Stop, A Walk Among The Tombstones, and this week's new release, Run All Night. But at age 62, Neeson is realizing he won't be able to keep this up forever, and in an interview with Collider, he says he plans on ending this phase of his career relatively soon.

“Maybe two more years. If God spares me and I’m healthy. But after that, I’ll stop [the action] I think...The success of certainly the Taken films, Hollywood seems to see me in a different light. I get sent quite a few action-oriented scripts, which is great. I’m not knocking it. It’s very flattering. But there is a limit, of course.”

I feel like Run All Night has some potential, but I'm still glad to hear that Neeson is self-aware and doesn't plan on milking this particular phase of his career completely dry. After a while, a lot of those projects start to feel like the same movie over and over again, and while I don't blame him in the slightest for cashing in on all of them and taking advantage of Hollywood giving him a late-career opportunity to become an action star, I'd love to see him go back to some regular roles that don't involve a use of that particular set of skills.

What do you think? Would you like to see Neeson churn out action movies until he's in his late sixties or early seventies, or do you think two more years sounds like a good cut-off point?

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