Liam Neeson's iconic speech from "Taken" arguably may be one of the most quoted lines in recent film history, but he has not always been on board with it.
In the 2008 film, Neeson's character Bryan Mills famously confronts his daughter's kidnappers over the phone, vowing to stop at nothing to rescue her. However, in an interview with Vanity Fair, the actor admitted he thought it was cringeworthy.
"I certainly did sound scary, but I thought it was corny," Neeson said. "It was a cornball. I really did feel that. It’s nice to be proven wrong."
Fans of the film will remember the scene well. When Mills assertively says to his daughter's kidnappers: "I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.
"If you let my daughter go now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
The film was a hit and became a trilogy, with "Taken 2" and "Taken 3" released in 2012 and 2014, respectively. However, speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2020, Neeson admitted he thought the film would bomb at the box office.
"I thought, Well, this is going to go straight to video. A short little European thriller, it might play OK for a couple weeks in France and then it will go straight-to-video," Neeson said.
"But Fox took it, and they very cleverly did a good trailer and put it during various sporting events around the country, and they made it a real success," he continued. "I remember the first weekend it came in at No. 3, and then it came up to No. 2 and then No. 1, and then it went down to No. 4, and it came up to No. 3 again. It just had this extraordinary cycle."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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