How many villains has Liam Neeson killed in the movies? More than a funny question, it is an analysis of the actor’s career in the action genre. After all, Neeson has become a part of one of the most successful franchises in punch-and-ball cinema. Also a frequent figure in convoluted, bizarre, and most of the time ultraviolent plots. But despite what it may seem, the Irish interpreter does not seem regretful of his curious journey through all kinds of films on the big screen.
Liam Neeson began his long and successful career in understated period dramas and historical films. He was even nominated for an Academy Award for his insightful and elegant portrayal of Oscar Schindler. The success Schindler’s List, by Steven Spielberg, made him one of the great film actors. He is also a frequent figure in major arguments and with considerable emphasis on the dramatic.
But as of 2008, the actor’s story changed radically. All thanks to his role as former CIA agent Brian Mills from the saga Revenge, one of the most popular of the action genre. From the first time he played the role, Liam Neeson surprised by endowing one-dimensional and violent characters with a strange character. Now, he best known for his formidable portrayal of the usual “one man army”, Neeson is an unclassifiable milestone in today’s cinema.
From that perspective, the actor has reflected on how the genre changed his way of understanding cinema. At the same time, even to understand what an actor can or cannot do in Hollywood. From his participation in great franchises like Star Wars and Batman, to his violent hero par excellence. Liam Neeson has shown that an actor can grow in several different directions and still retain his considerable standing in the acting world.
Liam Neeson: a man on a mission
For Liam Neeson it was a surprise to become a wildly popular figure in the action genre. In fact, as of 2008, the actor has played essentially identical characters. The strong and silent man capable of destroying everything in the way of a target, became the most recognizable hallmark of him. But beyond that, for Neeson it also meant a way to rediscover how action is capable of reinventing itself for a new audience.
Neeson’s new action hero is a different man from the ones Chuck Norris or Arnold Schwarzenegger used to play. Also, far from the temperamental and strange John McClane of Bruce Willis. Liam Neeson’s characters are distinguished by their ability to turn revenge into a total fact. And furthermore, for making it clear that the destruction that he will carry out to achieve whatever becomes his mission, it will be total. Everything, while the actor gives the character a curious humanity that ends up surprising him in all his curious ability.
Memory, the latest addition to Liam Neeson’s action movie saga, hits US screens on April 29. And about the premiere, ScreenRant asked the actor how many evil has killed on the big screen. The 69-year-old actor, who has confessed on more than one occasion that the change in registration allows him to enjoy a curious revival of his career, has responded with a certain cruel philosophy.
“I had a driver when I was doing the first movie Revenge fifteen years ago. We were shooting in Los Angeles and at the end of the first week the man said to me, ‘Mr. Neeson, can I ask you a question?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ He says, ‘I started reading the script for Revenge, I got to page 40, I think he said. He says you’ve taken the lives of 26 people. He didn’t know how to respond to that. I felt quite embarrassed. She said it in a way like: are you sure you’ve read this script? Because you do nasty things to people.”
Liam Neeson for ScreenRant
So Liam Neeson doesn’t have an answer to how many people he killed on screen; that number in the hundreds. Although he at least knows the exact number of murders in the first great film of the genre of his. The questioning is strange — beyond funny — because it is an evolution in a genre known for anonymous killings. But for Liam Neeson, has given action movies a certain adult and sophisticated air, this is an important issue. “It’s not about who to kill, but the reason,” she said in the same interview.
Liam Neeson’s next movie, Memory It will lead him to team up with actress Mónica Bellucci. The production, directed by Martin Campbell, is based on the novel De Zaak Alzheimer by Jef Geeraerts. The plot revolves around a criminal organization, which will haunt Neeson’s character when he refuses to continue killing. Again, a curiously human vision of the usual action hero that Hollywood is used to showing.