Hollywood star Liam Neeson has admitted he thought his hit movie Taken would go “straight to video”.
The 69-year-old appeared as a guest on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show this week to promote his new movie, Blacklight.
The Ballymena native opened up about his surprise that Taken was such a hit, saying he was convinced the film would go straight to video.
He said: “My wife, they were showing her film at a Shanghai Film Festival and Luc (Besson) was there. He is a wonderful man, a terrific director. Innovator.
“Anyway, he was head of the jury and I had read this Taken script and I was (thinking) it is going straight to video, but it is a cool, little story and it will go straight to video. No one will see it. But I get to fight a lot, which I wanted to do.
“So I met Luke and I said ‘look, I’m sure I’m not on your list at all but I used to box as a kid and I did sword fights in a few movies and I’d love the chance to do this’.
“So push came to shove and I got the part. It was three months in Paris, working out with these stunt guys five days a week. It was terrific. I was like a kid in a candy store.
“And then I thought ‘right that’s it over, it’s gone straight to video’.”
But he said when the film came out, his late wife Natasha – who tragically died in 2009 after sustaining an injury during a skiing accident – began laughing when she noticed the film rapidly climbing the movie charts.
“My wife, god rest her, when the film came out – she always brought me a cup of tea and a bran muffin every morning when I was at home – so Sunday, I heard her coming up the stairs with a tray giggling and laughing.
“Somethings up. So she gives me the tea and the bran muffin and she’s giggling. So, I say, ‘what’s wrong?’ and she says you won’t believe it, Taken is number two over the weekend.”
“It became a hit,” he said.
But he said the writing in Taken was wonderful, adding it was a “tight little European thriller”, saying “but I still thought it would go straight to video”.
Neeson also opened up about being “totally miscast” in the movie, Widows with Brian Tyree Henry.
“The one film I was totally miscast in. Totally miscast in.”
When asked why he thought he was miscast for the film, he said: “Because I saw it”.
“Up to Christmas, I made 100 films. I saw Widows. This is the film that Brian and myself are in. Brian is terrific in it. I was almost in tears; I was so bad. I was so miscast.
“I was bad in this,” he added.
The father-of-two cut a dapper figure while appearing on the hit American chat show, leaving audiences in stitches when he showed off his blue steel pose.
He revealed that he and actor Chris Hemsworth bonded over posing for photographs when filming 2019's Men In Black.
“We had to pose for a couple of photographs, and I said my usual line, I said, ‘Okay, they got that. Let's do a Blue Steel’.
Liam added: “And Chris went, ‘I'm going to do a Magnum’.”
Magnum is another of Stiller's character Zoolander's poses.
The Taken actor has been busy in recent months filming his new movie Retribution.
Filming for the Hollywood version of the Spanish thriller, El Desconocido, began in Berlin in July.
The flick will see Liam as a banking executive who receives a bomb threat whilst driving his children to school.
The banker's life is thrown upside down when he has to experience the harrowing events which then take place.
The picture is similar to the story of the film Speed which stars Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.
Jack Champion, as seen in Avatar 2, and Wonder Woman 1984's Lilly Aspell will play Liam's two children. Retribution is directed by Predator's Nimrod Antal.
