Liam Neeson announces retirement from action films after ‘a couple more’

Liam Neeson has announced that he will retire from the action genre after he finishes some forthcoming projects that are already in the works.

When asked if he’s ready to let go of his very particular set of skills, he told ET: “Oh, yeah. I think so. I'm 68 and a half. There's a couple more I'm going to do this year – hopefully, Covid allowing us – there's a couple in the pipeline and then I think that will probably be it.

“Well, unless I'm on a Zimmer frame or something.”

Neeson – whose cartel movie The Marksman is out this month – is currently filming action thriller The Ice Road, which follows an ice driver on an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the lives of trapped miners.

Then he’ll be starring in Memory, which centres on an assassin-for-hire who becomes a target after he refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organisation.

After that, he’s due to appear in political thriller Charlie Johnson in the Flames and Marlowe, a movie about a private detective.

His last big action film, Cold Pursuit, was released in 2019. In an interview with The Independent to promote the movie, Neeson admitted that he once walked the streets with a cosh for days, looking to kill a “black bastard” after someone close to him was raped many years ago. He said that he felt “ashamed” of his past “awful” behaviour.

The fallout from Neeson's comments led to the cancellation of the ​premiere of Cold Pursuit.