People say you don’t want to be typecast as an actor or actress, but Liam Neeson seems to be OK with playing the guy from Taken over and over again.

He’s got a unique set of skills, he’s going to find you, and he’s going to hurt you – or some variant thereof.

Well, in what can only be described as a trainwreck PR nightmare interview ahead of the release of his new film, Cold Pursuit, Neeson seems to have hunted down his career and battered it.

I want you to imagine this being said in Neeson’s voice – here’s the BBC:

In the interview, he said: “God forbid you’ve ever had a member of your family hurt under criminal conditions. I’ll tell you a story. This is true.”

Neeson said the alleged rape took place a long time ago and he found out about it when he came back from a trip abroad. The actor went on to use racially offensive language about the attacker.

He said: “She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way.

“But my immediate reaction was… I asked, did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person.

Now things really start going off the rails…

“I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody – I’m ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [uses air quotes with fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him.”

Neeson clearly knows what he’s saying, and how shocking it is, how appalling. “It took me a week, maybe a week and a half, to go through that. She would say, ‘Where are you going?’ and I would say, ‘I’m just going out for a walk.’ You know? ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘No no, nothing’s wrong.’”

Err, you went hunting the streets looking for a black man to murder? Liam, my man, that story is not going to resonate well with readers.

He clearly realised that he had stuffed up:

Neeson referred back to his comments later in the interview, adding: “It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that. And I’ve never admitted that, and I’m saying it to a journalist. God forbid.

“It’s awful. But I did learn a lesson from it.”

Something tells me that a harsh lesson will be learnt from this interview, too.

Ostensibly, Neeson was trying to draw parallels between his experience and that of his character in his new movie:

In Cold Pursuit, the son of his character, Nels Coxman, is killed by a drug gang, sparking the desire for revenge. “I think audience members live to see [that violence on screen],” Neeson continues. “They can kind of live vicariously through it. People say, ‘Yeah but violence in films makes people want to go out and kill people.’

If his kids aren’t getting killed, they’re getting kidnapped. I’m beginning to think Neeson is a terrible on-screen parent.

Right, to the reactions.

Happy Black History month, everyone?

That’s referring to Adam and Maroon 5’s less than stellar Super Bowl show.

Gotta throw this video in…

Black people:

Liam Neeson:

pic.twitter.com/yahaWrFhIo

— T. S. Jennings (@T_Jay_3) February 4, 2019

Is this going to be a career-defining moment? Sure, the backlash won’t go any time soon, but let’s remember that he didn’t actually commit the hate crime.

Mark Wahlberg, on the other hand, actually did, and his career has gone pretty smoothly.

A recap from NBC:

Court documents indicate that in Boston, on April 8, 1988, Wahlberg attacked two Vietnamese-American men, knocking one man — Thanh Lam — unconscious with a five-foot-long wooden stick, and punching another — Hoa Trinh.

Investigators noted Wahlberg made several unsolicited racial statements about “g–ks” and “slant-eyed g–ks” at the time. He was arrested, charged with attempted murder, convicted of assault, and served 45 days in prison. Wahlberg was 16-years old, admitted to being intoxicated, and insisted race had nothing to do with his crime.

But his assault conviction was accompanied by another, for contempt for court. That stemmed from a series of attacks he committed two years earlier, chasing and hurling rocks and racial epithets at African-American school children.

A court prohibited him from assaulting, threatening, or intimidating anyone because of race or national origin; the 1988 investigation found him in violation of the order, meaning the court believed race did play a role in the attacks on Lam and Trinh.

Marky Mark, not a good look.

All that aside, you just cannot fathom how Liam Neeson thought bringing up that story was going to end well.

[sources:bbc&deadline&nbc]