His “Atlanta” cameo helps, but Neeson is still feeling “slightly nervous” about replacing the great Leslie Nielsen.
Liam Neeson is (emotionally) baring all ahead of leading the “Naked Gun” reboot.
The actor told ComingSoon.com that he feels “slightly nervous” about leading a sequel to the iconic comedy films. Neeson says he knows his comedy chops have “to be proven.”
“It has to be proven,” Neeson said of said chops. “So I’m slightly nervous of it. A little Stephen Colbert sketch or Ricky Gervais, I’m OK because it’s short. But a whole film, we’ll see. We’ll see.”
The original “Naked Gun” films starred Leslie Nielsen as hapless detective Frank Drebin whose cases always become a comedy of errors. The films were a spinoff from short-lived ’80s TV series “Police Squad!” In the new movie, due out next year, Neeson will play the son of Nielsen’s character in a sequel directed by “SNL” and Lonely Island alum Akiva Schaffer, with Seth MacFarlane producing.
“It’s a good script,” Neeson said. “Akiva Schaffer from the world of SNL is co-writing and he’s the director. So we’ll see. We’re still in the casting process for the other parts, but the script, there’s some very funny laugh out loud moments.”
Neeson previously told IndieWire that “Naked Gun” will “either be the end of my so-called career or it’ll be another little avenue.”
“There’s very funny stuff in it,” he said. “They were all a series of gags. […] You couldn’t get away with that shit now.”
Neeson showed off a bit of (self-deprecating) comedy on the third season of “Atlanta” in a meta reference his 2019 racially-charged controversial comments. The comments landed him in the “Atlanta” Cancel Club bar.
It was Jordan Peele who helped “Atlanta” creator Donald Glover land Neeson for the gag.
“Jordan thought it was hilarious! So Jordan talked to him,” Glover told GQ. “Liam hit me back and said he talked to Jordan and his son and thought it’d actually be a good thing. But what was so funny is, like, I forgot to hit Jordan back. I was so excited about Liam doing it. So Jordan hit a friend of mine, and was like, ‘Am I on a prank show where Donald got me to forgive Liam Neeson? Was this a joke…on me?’”
