Liam Neeson is not ready to leave the action genre behind. The 74-year-old actor said he believes he may still have a few more action movies in him, even as he approaches an age when most stars of his kind have long since stepped away from physically demanding roles.
«Maybe a couple left, you know,» Neeson said when asked whether he plans to move away from action films in the near future. «Maybe … I hope I have a couple left.» The Taken star has been a fixture of the genre for well over a decade, building a second career as an unlikely action hero after decades of dramatic work. He has joked in the past about not wanting to perform stunts while pushing a walker, a line that captured both his self-awareness and his willingness to keep going as long as the material works.
His latest action film, The Fix, opened in theaters Friday. In it, Neeson plays an ex-CIA operative, and he is joined by Zachary Levi, who plays a fellow former operative and the protagonist's protégé. The film leans on spycraft, twists and a darker tone than some of Levi's earlier roles, but both actors have said its real subject is something more human.
Neeson pointed to redemption as a central theme of the movie. «I'd like to think we all need and want second chances, you know,» he said. «We're humans. We've all made mistakes in our personal lives and stuff, you know? It's extraordinary to be forgiven, and it's an extraordinary thing to really forgive someone. It really is very, very special.» He added that at 74 he has had his own experience of being forgiven for serious mistakes, calling it amazing and something he can return to others.
Levi, 46, expanded on that idea, comparing a refusal to forgive to «drinking poison, hoping that the other person will die.» He described forgiveness as grace, mercy, understanding and empathy, qualities he said people do not explore enough. He acknowledged that people do evil and monstrous things, but argued that they remain worthy of second, third and fourth chances, while still requiring boundaries. Without forgiveness, he said, people and societies are being eaten alive.
Levi also said the greatest definition of love he has heard is to will the good of the other, which does not require liking someone or agreeing with their decisions. In the film, his character works alongside Neeson's, and he described the experience as a relief because meeting one of his idols lived up to expectations. He noted that he has met other idols who did not, making this a welcome exception.
Director Guy Moshe said he had been looking for a project that would let him bring his perspective as an Israeli military veteran to the screen without recreating a specific real event. He was drawn to the idea of money hidden in a wall in Tehran since 1979, a piece of CIA lore that may or may not be true, and built a story around a group of men in that field. He said he wanted to begin the film with the evacuation from Afghanistan and give the characters a journey toward mental redemption rather than redemption for one particular act.
Moshe described The Fix as a story about a father who wonders whether he wants his son to grow up like him, even though the father outwardly fits the image of a hero. He credited Neeson's success as an action star to his realism, saying audiences identify with people who feel like real individuals in real situations. That quality, he said, sounds simple but is the hardest thing to achieve in acting.