Liam Neeson says people ‘live vicariously' through his violent movies and love it

Irish Daily Star

2 days ago

Liam Neeson is one of the biggest action stars in Hollywood, so it can be easy to associate him with violence.
The 72-year-old actor who grew up in
Northern Ireland
has played the 'tough guy' role in countless films like
Taken
and The Commuter. He also starred in the
2019 movie Cold Pursuit
where he played Nels Coxman, a quiet snow plow driver who becomes enraged and vengeful when his son is murdered.
In the movie, Neeson's character transforms from an upstanding citizen to a coldblooded vigilante. While doing promo for the movie, Neeson discussed his own relationship to violence, both on and off the big screen.
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The actor discussed how seeing a lot of violence on screen can impact audiences, and responded to accusations that the kind of films he typically stars in, can radicalize people and make them violent.
'I think audience members live to see [that violence on screen],' Neeson told the Independent. 'They can kind of live vicariously through it. People say, 'Yeah but violence in films makes people want to go out and kill people.' I don't believe that at all.'
Liam Neeson's best known role is probably in the Taken franchise
(Image: film still)
'I think the average moviegoer thinks, 'Yeah, punch him. Punch him,'' Neeson continued. 'And they get a satisfaction out of seeing somebody else enact it, and they leave the theatre and they feel satiated in some way.'
Neeson previously admitted that he drew on the experiences he had,
growing up 'surrounded by violence'
in the north. He was one of four children in a Catholic family in Ballymena,
Co Antrim
.
Though he rarely speaks about it, he has shared snippets of his turbulent teenage years, where he admitted that his friends were caught up in the sectarian violence,
some even dying in the 1981 Hunger Strike.
Neeson isn't done with violent films anytime soon, though he admitted that he knows
his days as an action man are numbered.
'Audiences are innately intelligent and they'll know when you're past your prime in regards to throwing punches and firing guns, but I'm not there yet,' he told the Hollywood Reporter.
When the time does come, Neeson doesn't need to worry about what film genre he'll delve into next. Fans hail his historical dramas as some of his best work, including his depiction of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, and 1993 war film, Schindler's List.
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