Liam Neeson thought Taken was going straight to video

The new Scene Stealers episode came out Thursday afternoon, and Feits got 2 guests in the chair: Neeson and his longtime stunt double Mark Vanselow.

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Liam Neeson and Mark Vaneslow on the new episode of Scene Stealers, out now! Watch here: t.co/3BF8UtHFGq

The bit everyone grabbed is Neeson admitting he had zero faith in the movie that made him an action star. Taken is about as simple as a pitch gets: a retired guy with a very particular set of skills goes after the people who grabbed his daughter. Neeson apparently figured that simplicity meant it was going straight to the bargain bin.

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Liam Neeson thought ‘Taken’ was gonna go straight to video

He was very, very wrong. Taken made $226 million worldwide. Taken 2 made $376 million and Taken 3 made $326 million, so the 3 movies together come in around $928 million. That's real money for a story Neeson once dismissed, in his own words from an earlier interview, as "such a simple little story." It also completely changed his career. Before Taken he was the Schindler's List and Michael Collins guy. After it, he spent the next 15-plus years punching people in airports, on trains and in snowplows.

If the story sounds familiar, that's because it is. Neeson has told versions of it before, and the straight-to-video quote has been floating around for a couple of years. It still hits, though. A guy who hated the script, signed on and ended up with a billion-dollar-ish franchise and a whole second career is about as good a Hollywood fluke story as there is, and hearing it straight from Neeson beats reading it in a quote roundup.

Having Vanselow there is the deeper cut. He's doubled Neeson since Gun Shy in 1998, which is roughly 28 years and more than 30 movies, including the whole Taken trilogy. Neeson also reportedly fought to get him hired on the overseas Taken shoots, even though a local stuntman would have been cheaper. Now the roles have flipped. Vanselow directed Neeson in The Mongoose, his first feature as a director, and it hits theaters October 30, 2026, which is tomorrow.

So that's why the 2 of them are on a press tour, and Scene Stealers got the version of it where Neeson actually loosens up. The full episode is out now. And if you're keeping score, the guy who thought Taken would die on a video store shelf is still opening action movies at 74.