Liam Neeson, 72, is ready to retire from action movies: ‘It has to stop’

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PEOPLE published Wednesday. “I’m 72 — it has to stop at some stage,” Neeson said. “You can’t fool audiences.”“Maybe the end of next year,” he added about his retirement plan. “I think that’s it.”At this point in his career, Neeson still does his own fight scenes but lets his longtime collaborator, Mark Vanselow, do the more extensive stunt work.“I don’t want Mark to be fighting my fight scenes for me,” he explained.Neeson has famously played the leading man in countless action films, including the “Taken” series, “The A-Team,” “The Grey,” “Wrath of the Titans,” “Run All Night,” “The Commuter,” “Cold Pursuit,” and his latest film, “Absolution.”His career, which started in the late 1970s, has also included war dramas (“Michael Collins” and “Schindler’s List”), blockbusters (“Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and “Batman Begins”), and romantic comedies (“Love, Actually” and “Ordinary Love”).Neeson is also exercising his comedy chops in the upcoming “The Naked Gun” remake set for release in 2025. “Whether I can carry it or not, I honestly don’t know,” he said about his “silly” role as hapless cop Frank Drebin Jr.

in the film.But his co-star, Pamela Anderson, said otherwise.“He’s being humble,” she told PEOPLE. “It was hard to keep a straight face in scenes together.”Neeson previously said at the start of 2021 that he was eyeing a retirement from action movies.“I’m 68 and a half.

69 this year. There’s a couple more I’m going to do this year,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight at the time.“There’s a couple in the pipeline and, then I think that will probably be it,” Neeson added. “Well, unless I’m on a Zimmer frame or something.”The year prior, Neeson told ET he was done with superhero movies, after playing Ra’s.