Liam Neeson announces plan to retire from action movies

It’s a day to celebrate if you’re an Albanian mobster, smug terrorist, or a wolf. Liam Neeson is contemplating retirement from the bruising action movies that have become his calling card. “Maybe two more years. If God spares me and I’m healthy and stuff,” he told reporters while promoting his new film, Run All Night. “But after that, I’ll stop [the action], I think.”

The Irish actor became an unlikely action hero in his mid-50s, after Taken grossed $145 million in 2008 and yielded two successful sequels as well as a series of other similar violent thrillers. Though the rugged 6’4″ Neeson could always handle the physical demands of such roles, he had previously been best known for his dramatic performances in Schindler’s List and Kinsey before segueing into elder mentor roles in movies like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Batman Begins.

Today, though, at 62, he’s best known as a bruiser with a “very particular set of skills.” “I’m in a very—career-wise—great place,” Neeson said, according to ABC. “The success of certainly the Taken films, Hollywood seems to see me in a different light. I get sent quite a few action-oriented scripts, which is great. I’m not knocking it. It’s very flattering. But there is a limit, of course.”

Neeson’s next movie is this summer’s Ted 2, which reunites him with Seth MacFarlane, who directed A Million Ways to Die in the West. He’s currently filming Silence with his Gangs of New York director, Martin Scorsese.