Liam Neeson Says He's In Talks To Star In 'The Naked Gun' Reboot

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is a comedy classic! Featuring Leslie Nielsen who plays Detective Frank Drebin of LAPD's elite Police Squad, the story follows the hapless cop who causes more problems than he solves in the crime comedy film. Guess who's been envisioned to fill Nielsen's boots? The man with the sexiest baritone, Liam Neeson himself! While Neeson is more famous for his action-hero roles it'll be interesting to see the almost 69-year-old actor dabble in comedy. 

Neeson's popular roles include one in the film Taken, where he plays a former government operative who must rescue his daughter after she's kidnapped in Paris. His other notable role includes that of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, who tries to save his Jewish employees in the 1993 drama film Schindler's List. In his recent film The Marksman, he takes on the role of a former Marine turned rancher who must leave his quiet life to save an 11-year-old boy from drug cartel assassins.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Neeson said that, after this year, he plans to retire from action movies. "I'm 68 and a half — 69 this year," he told. "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."

So who would have picked Neeson for a funny role like that of Detective Frank Drebin? Seth McFarlane of course. Neeson has worked with MacFarlane on several occasions such as A Million Ways to Die in the West, Ted 2, Family Guy, and The Orville, so it's not a completely unbelievable scenario.

In fact, MacFarlane once said that he'd love to do a Naked Gun-type film with the Irish actor, stating, "Generally with dramatic actors they do kinda like the idea of coming in and doing a comedy to show they can do comedy. Liam is great with comedy. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen his Ricky Gervais sketch? Liam is awesome. My dream at some point would be to do an entire movie with Liam where he does a Leslie Nielson Naked Gun kinda thing. Because he’s so good at playing against the comedy and therefore he’s hilarious. He just really knows what he’s doing."

What does Neeson have to say about that? "I've been approached by Seth McFarlane and Paramount Studios to maybe resurrect the Naked Gun films," he told People. He joked, "It'll either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don't know." Of his iconic action roles, he shared,  "I like doing it. The scripts are good. I'm kind of like a kid in a candy store." Even his sons love his action roles. "They're very much behind me, I think," he said. "I haven't caught them laughing when I've left the room." Will he take the plunge into comedy? We'll just have to wait and see!