Liam Neeson on the escapist pleasures of Philip Marlowe

Growing up, Liam Neeson was surrounded by violence. He found refuge in escaping into movies.

Since 2012, Liam Neeson has released at least two movies a year, usually more. In 2014, he released nine films. The man likes to work.

So, it’s no surprise the prolific Northern Irish actor has just clocked up his 100th film. The honour went to Marlowe, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s iconic hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe.

Neeson, switching his Irish brogue for an American one, dons the coat and the hat, and enters a world of femme fatales, double crosses and rampant corruption. It’s a homage to a classic murky film noir, directed by Neil Jordan and co-starring Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming.

Neeson talked to news.com.au about growing up in Northern Ireland and watching movies as escapism, and how Marlowe is in conversation with the world today.

Were you ever a fan of the Raymond Chandler books?

I’m an avid reader and have been for many years. I went through a period when I couldn’t get enough of Nordic noir, particularly Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. But I’d never dipped into Raymond Chandler.

Marlowe is in cinemas now. Picture: Quim Vives

When I knew I was going to be doing this film, I thought I better start reading Chandler. And I couldn’t get enough. He had written six or seven books with the Philip Marlowe character, and I read all of them and some other stuff too.

But I’ve always had this memory of growing up in my hometown in Northern Ireland with a black-and-white TV in the living room, and every Sunday there seemed to be a noir film on with guys in trench coats and trilby hats and rain falling. Alan Ladd, Humphrey Bogart, of course, Robert Mitchum and John Garfield.

So, I grew up with this character.

The character is so ingrained in Hollywood legacy. Did the prospect of following people such as Mitchum, Bogart and James Garner ever intimidate you?

I forgot about James Garner, and Powers Boothe, he played him on TV. I’ll be honest, I didn’t find it intimidating. I felt very honoured to get the chance to play him. And Neil Jordon is a friend of mine, this is our fourth film together.

I trusted the fact that he trusted me, that I would bring the character to life and not try to copy or emulate Mr Bogart or Mr Mitchum or James Garner or Elliott Gould.

What conversations did you have with Neil about making an iconic character specific to this project? Did you guys see it as making it your own or is it just another vessel for Chandler’s work?

Our script is loosely based on The Black-Eyed Blonde, which was a novel written by John Banville, who’s an Irish novelist that had been approached by Chandler’s estate.

It was adapted by William Monahan as a screenplay, and Neil, who’s a wonderful writer too, came on and decided, let’s set it in 1938 and 1939 Hollywood and make it an element of the story. All the shady dealings that we know happened in Hollywood enriched our script.

And in a conversation my character has with Danny Huston’s character, Danny talks about being in the First World War, and I say I too was in the Somme, which is probably the most infamous trench warfare battle.

So, that made it Neil’s and my Philip Marlowe, you know? Without taking it away from Chandler or reinventing it. Well, there was a certain reinvention, obviously, but still paying homage to Mr Chandler’s creation.

Liam Neeson with director Neil Jordan. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images

When Chandler was writing in the interwar era and during World War II, there was such a reckoning with these horrors the world had seen, what humans were capable of inflicting on each other, and the Bogart movies were made then too. That was one of the hallmarks of hard-boiled detective fiction. How do you think this genre and this movie is in conversation with our world today?

I’ve had thoughts about that over the past number of months. There’s so much happening in the world, with the pandemic that we’ve all gone through, and still going through, the world seems to be like a three-legged stool. It’s not quite solid.

With someone like Philip Marlowe, it’s escapist entertainment, of course. And it’s good if people are entertained by it. And they might think, ‘This guy is not very rich, he’s just a normal guy but there’s a spirit in him that’s questing after a certain justice.’

We are all living for, with all this sh*t happening with Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, Africa on the boil and China seems to be on the boil with Taiwan, we’re all looking for someone to just guide us.

As small as that might be, this little piece of entertainment, there’s something in Philip Marlowe, as created by Chandler, that’s trying to steer it. A kind of moral ethics, this is how it should be.

Liam Neeson loves constantly working. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

Because he has his moral code that’s not necessarily always in line with everything around him. So, that’s quite comforting.

I think so. I grew up surrounded by violence in Northern Ireland. I was never involved, but constantly on the TV were politicians lying to each other. There was an army barracks at the end of our street, constantly hearing sirens, seeing images of destruction and bombs, in Belfast, Derry and other places.

The refuge I got, and my sisters got, was watching movies. And it really was a refuge, it made the world a little bit saner. It didn’t matter what the movie was, it just made it a little bit more comfortable that there was something at the end of a tunnel, there was a light.

Be it a Disney cartoon like Robin Hood or The Sword in the Stone, or Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy or Philip Marlowe.

Or film noir movies. It just made the world a little bit saner.

This is your 100th movie. That’s the kind of number that might make you take stock of your career and what’s next. Are you still happy being so prolific?

I love to keep working and, seriously, I’ve been very, very lucky. I really mean that. And they’re still offering me scripts. Some still are still beating bad guys, which I like. Anytime I speak to my agent and I’ve read a script that says I’m beating guys, I’ll say, ‘Chris, do they know what age I am?’. ‘Oh, they do? OK, thank you.’

Well, we hope to see you beat more bad guys, but also play some bad guys. I really liked your performance in Widows recently.

I thought I was miscast in that one, but how good was Viola Davis? And Brian Tyree Henry. They’re fabulous actors.

Marlowe is in cinemas now.

Originally published as Liam Neeson on the escapist pleasures of Philip Marlowe