Liam Neeson tried not to copy Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun
Liam Neeson didn't want to "emulate" the late Leslie Nielsen in his take on Frank Drebin Jr in The Naked Gun reboot.
Liam Neeson didn't set out to "emulate" Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun.
The 73-year-old actor leads the cast of the comedy reboot as Frank Drebin Jr and was determined to avoid falling into the trap of mimicking the late actor – who played the character's father Detective Sergeant Frank Drebin in the original movies.
Liam told Empire magazine: "I wouldn't say nerve-wracking, but every day I would go up to Akiva (Schaffer, director) after we wrapped and say, 'How was it?' Because I just didn't know.
"I did not want to emulate the wonderful Leslie Nielsen, but the only thing I grabbed from him, was, 'Be serious. Don't try to be funny. Just stick to being a serious cop who is a bit of a doofus.'"
Schaffer explained that he wanted his picture to differ from the previous flicks.
The 47-year-old director said: "Liam's got his own things, but they're not Leslie Nielsen's things.
"It would also be unfair to Liam (to try to mimic Nielsen), because he'd be spending the whole movie trying to match something that is another human being with a whole different – forgive me – set of skills."
Akiva revealed that the Taken star was influential when it came to inserting jokes into the movie – which is released in cinemas next month.
The filmmaker said: "He was actually the most game for the most silly stuff. I was constantly surprised.
"He would be on set adding fart jokes, and I'd have to be like, 'Remember, three scenes earlier we have that fart joke. So if you do it here, it might be too early.'"
The film is the first time that Neeson has taken a leading role in a comedy and Schaffer felt that this was beneficial for the project after the Northern Irish actor was recommended by producer Seth MacFarlane.
He said: "That changed the entire equation for me.
"Not only is Liam one of the best 'gravitas' leading men, he also is one of the only ones that has barely used it for comedy.
"There's a lot of handsome guys – Jon Hamm, Alec Baldwin types – that if they had never done a comedy they could do it, and you'd be like, 'Whoa, where did this come from?' But they realised very early on that they could use their power for laughs."
Schaffer explained that he used action movies as well as a range of different police procedurals as inspiration for ridicule in the flick.
He said: "I was like, 'Wow, there are 30 years of Law and Orders and CSIs and all those procedurals.'
"And the John Wicks, and Mission: Impossibles, and James Bond movies that have become very different than they were back then."
