Taken by Neeson

SEOUL — As you read this, I should be face-to-face with Liam Neeson at a function room of a five-star hotel in this city where Neeson is promoting his latest starrer. I know that you know what movie it is…yes, Taken 2.

You see, when friends learned that I was going to have a one-on-one with Neeson, their eyes invariably lit up, “I saw him in Taken. He was just amazing in that movie!”

In fact, I realized that almost everybody has seen Taken except, I must admit with a sense of guilt, poor me. Fortunately, when Salve Asis, entertainment editor of Pilipino Star Ngayon (PSN) and PM (Pang-Masa), sister publications of The STAR, lent me her DVD copy (original, I hasten to add, not pirated) of Taken and, in exchange, I lent her my DVD copy of Bwakaw (the Eddie Garcia starrer which should be submitted for consideration to the Best Foreign-Language Film competition in next year’s Oscars).

Like everybody else, I was right away “taken” by Neeson with his powerful portrayal of a father who moved heaven and earth and risking life and limb in his effort to rescue his daughter (played by Maggie Grace) and her girl friend abducted by a cartel of human traffickers while vacationing in Paris. I watched it thrice, no kidding!

So when the Manila office of 20th Century Fox (producer of the movie which is released worldwide by Warner Bros.) invited me to interview Neeson for Taken 2, I dropped everything for the rare opportunity not only because I’m eagerly waiting for the sequel but also because I wanted to find out how Neeson has been since 2002 when I first interviewed him in New York for K-9: The Widowmaker (with Harrison Ford). Sad note: his wife, actress Natasha Richardson (daughter of Vanessa Redgrave) died in a freak skiing accident a few years ago.

Of course, Neeson has done several other movies (like Schindler’s List, Shining Through with Melanie Griffith and Rob Roy, Nell with Jodie Foster and Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace) but he’s well-loved and fondly remembered for Taken maybe because he plays a sympathetic character in a moving story that fathers, mothers, sons and daughters can easily relate to.

Before I arrived in Seoul, Warner Bros. PR girl Mae Vecina let me watch Taken 2 (a “must” in Hollywood junkets; you are not allowed to do the interviews if you don’t watch the movie) which follows Neeson’s character Bryan Mills and his family in Istanbul where the father of the cartel’s leader is out to avenge his son killed by Mills during his daughter’s rescue. I won’t tell you what happens beyond that. Find out for yourself when Taken 2 is shown in the Philippines first week of October.

This time directed by Olivier Megaton (Hitman, Transporter 3, etc.), Taken 2 is far more breathtaking than Taken. The scenes, especially those shot in and out of Istanbul’s side streets, will keep you on the edge of your seat. The action is non-stop…well, it does stop only when the bad guys have their comeuppance.

I still remember Neeson from our 2002 interview at a function room of Essex House which is located just across from Central Park. He was towering at 6’4” and his cleft nose crinkled a bit when he answered even questions about his personal feelings. This time, though, in deference to the memory of his late wife who, I’m sure, he’s still terribly missing, I won’t ask him any question that might remind him of that tragedy.

During that first interview, Neeson, then 50 (born in Ireland in 1952), said that he’s a devout Catholic and he prayed a lot.

“I believe in the power of prayer,” he said then. “If you notice, the more you pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the more it actually reveals the truth to you. I’ve been doing it for a long time — say the Our Father and the Hail Mary, I mean.”

Asked what he usually prayed for, Neeson said, “First, I pray to thank God for my life, for all the blessings in my life. I feel that I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I’m doing something that I love — and get paid for it. In the process, I also pray for people who are troubled, who are my friends and my family.”

A few years before that interview, I read somewhere that Neeson had an intimation of mortality when a blockage was removed from his colon.

“When you are midway through life,” he mused then, “you can’t help thinking of how you, too, will go, you know. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I do sit-ups and push-ups, and I run miles every day. And yet, I got sick. It’s one of the mysteries of life. When somebody tells me, ‘Next Sunday, I’m going to….’, I always pause and think, ‘Next Sunday?’ But you can never tell what will happen to you tomorrow or before ‘next Sunday.’ I live life on a daily basis; I just take it a day at a time.” 

Then I asked him who was the most influential person in his life and he smiled, “My wife.”

So how would he describe himself?

“My wife does it better,” he kept on smiling. “She describes me this way, ‘You always see the glass half empty. It’s never half full!’ It captures exactly how I see myself.”

For sure, my second interview with Neeson will be even more interesting. I guess I will be “taken” by him the second time around and I really don’t mind.

What’s up?

• Correction to Funfare’s item about Elton John coming for a concert at the Big Dome on Dec. 8, from my friend PC: The original version of Candle in the Wind was recorded in 1973 as a tribute to Marilyn Monroe. What you were referring to is Candle in the Wind 1997, for which Elton asked his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to rewrite in reference to Princess Diana’s death. Elton vowed never to sing it again live after Diana’s funeral, unless her sons ask him to. So baka hindi niya talaga kantahin ito, kung sakali, ‘yung original version lang.

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