You can't do better than the first film... you can only make it different

WHEN you think of Liam Neeson's body of work, comedy is not the first thing that comes to mind.

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The Northern Irish actor, 73, is known for playing tough-guy protagonists in crime thrillers, including three Taken movies as former CIA operative Bryan Mills, as well as Retribution and In The Land of Saints And Sinners, both released in 2023. Or perhaps you remember his turn as Scottish outlaw Rob Roy.

But for American actor and producer Seth MacFarlane, 51, creator of adult animated sitcoms Family Guy and American Dad!, Liam was the perfect choice for his latest venture a fourth film in The Naked Gun comedy franchise.

The pair had worked together previously on 2014's western comedy, A Million Ways To Die In the West, which saw Liam playing a gunslinger.

"He was just so funny. Dead serious, with this ridiculous dialogue. I feel like that was the first time I thought there might be a version of a Leslie Nielsen-type comedy that Liam would be funny in," recalls Seth, who also starred in, directed and wrote the Ted films featuring Mark Wahlberg.

Another feather in Liam's comedy cap, which Seth references, is a 2011 episode of Ricky Gervais’s Life's Too Short which sees Liam expressing his desire to be a comedy actor with a deadpan delivery.

"There he was, doing improv with Stephen Merchant, Ricky and Warwick Davis. That was an indicator that maybe this was a guy who could be mined for comedy at some point," Seth explains.

Enter The Naked Gun film and Liam's starring role as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, who is proud to follow in the footsteps of his father (the character previously played by Leslie) and protect the good people of Los Angeles from the many faces of crime.