Liam Neeson says he is not retiring from action films
"There’s only so many times your daughter can get taken," said Neeson.
— -- Liam Neeson fans won't see the Irish actor in any more "Taken" movies. But that doesn't mean Neeson is giving up his career as an action star.
"There’s only so many times your daughter can get taken. C’mon! No, that’s done," Neeson said in a recent appearance on "Popcorn With Peter Travers."
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Even though he's giving up that no-nonsense action hero role, Neeson said he and Maggie Grace, his co-star who plays the role of his daughter in the "Taken" film series, have jokingly tossed around a few scenarios of their own to keep the franchise going. In one playful texting exchange, he suggested to Grace, "You have a child. Child gets taken. I’d been babysitting. You’d been out."
Travers suggested that maybe a call from the right person with the right script might pull Neeson back into the "Taken" series.
"Sure," Neeson said.
But don't get your hopes up just yet. Neeson has found another sweet spot in the acting world. He's playing a more dramatic role this time in his new film "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought the White House Down." Neeson's character is Mark Felt, better known as Deep Throat, the FBI source who exposed the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign.
"People say why did he do it. Why did he spill the beans? In FBI circles he would be regarded as a traitor," Neeson, 65, told Travers. "But I want to believe first off he was very upset that when [Edgar J.] Hoover died, Mark Felt didn’t get the No. 1 position. He was very hurt by that as indeed were a lot of other FBI agents. I think that spurred him on."
Neeson added, "So I think Felt saw or predicted that this was going straight up to the top. These covert operations, this criminality was coming from the West Wing."
"This feels good doing this movie?" Travers asked Neeson.
"Yeah, it was different from beating up bad guys," he said.
"Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House" is in theaters everywhere.
Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Travers and Liam Neeson in the video above.