Liam Neeson Originally Thought That 'Taken' Would Flop

Liam Neeson reflected on all of his previous roles and shared that he thought that Taken would go straight to video.

The 70-year-old actor just reached a significant milestone and celebrated his 100th film role.

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Liam shared that he originally wanted the role in Taken because of the French writer Luc Besson, who also wrote the script for The Fifth Element.

“I was hoping to meet him and I did. I said, “Look, Luc, I’m sure I’m not on even your long list of people, but would you consider me?” he recalled.

“Anyway, push came to shove, they offered me it,” Liam told IndieWire. “I remember thinking, “’It’s going to go straight to video, it doesn’t matter, it’s just such a simple little story.’ But it’s three months in Paris. How bad can that be? Working with these stunt guys every evening, I was in heaven. It was just a joy.”

“Then the film came out and did well in France first. Then it went to South Korea,” Liam said of its growing popularity at the time. “Then I remember getting a couple calls from my nephews in Ireland, ‘Hi, Uncle Liam. We saw your film.’ ‘What one was that?’ ‘Uh, Taken.’ I said, ‘You couldn’t have seen that. It’s not out yet.’ ‘Oh, well, we downloaded it.’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s the end of that.’”

“And then Fox took it in 2009 and they just did a really cool trailer, started showing it at sporting events and stuff,” Liam continued. “I think it opened at number two or number three and it sort of hovered there and went up and down a bit and then up a bit. It was great. [Laughs] This straight-to-video little movie! It’s nice to be proven wrong.”

Taken became so popular it was followed by two sequels, Taken 2 and Taken 3, released in 2012 and 2014.

Liam Neeson recently called out UFC star Conor McGregor and said, “That little leprechaun Conor McGregor, he gives Ireland a bad name.”