Liam Neeson announces retirement from action films
The 65-year-old says audiences will eventually go "come on" if he continues to accept lucrative offers to star in thrillers.
Tuesday 12 September 2017 16:13, UK
Liam Neeson has put aside his "special set of skills" and announced he is retiring from thrillers due to his age.
He may have enjoyed box office success in the Taken franchise and other action-packed movies, but the Irish star says he wants to focus on more serious roles.
At the Toronto International Film Festival, he said the unlikely turn in his career towards thrillers was "all a pure accident".
Neeson added: "They're still throwing serious money at me to do that stuff.
"I'm like: 'Guy's I'm sixty-f******-five.' Audiences are eventually going to go: 'Come on.'"
His debut as an older action star was in the 2008 hit Taken, where he played a former government operative trying to reconnect with his daughter.
With nearly a dozen action movies under his belt, Neeson has a final two in the pipeline which will be released in the coming months.
He has already filmed Hard Powder, in which he plays a snowplough driver who faces off with drug dealers.
Neeson will also appear in The Commuter, which has been directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
The actor's next film, opening this week in Toronto, is a Watergate drama titled Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House.
In it, he plays the FBI official nicknamed Deep Throat - the Washington Post's source in the scandal.
Neeson has been also lined up to co-star in Widows, the next film by 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen.