The 'Taken' actor uses what he calls his 'cup of tea test' when reading movie scripts in order to help him decide which onscreen roles to accept and which ones to reject.

• Oct 4, 2020

AceShowbiz - Liam Neeson picks film roles based on his need to have a cup of tea.

The movie star knows a film is going to be good if he doesn't feel the need to take a tea break while reading its script.

Such was the case with his new movie, "The Honest Thief", in which he portrays a bank robber trying to go straight.

"I have something I call my cup of tea test," Neeson tells WENN. "If I start reading the script and I get to page six and decide, 'Oh, I must get a cup of tea', that's not a good sign."

"With Honest Thief, I got all the way to the end of the story. (Character) Tom meets this woman and falls in love for the first time in his life. He decides to give up his bandit career after accumulating these millions of dollars. I thought that was such an original idea. It really touched me."

And he also enjoys films in which he gets to work with stunt co-ordinator Mark Vanselow - the pair has now teamed up for 24 projects.

"I've never once scuffed a knuckle, never once had a damaged muscle - nothing at all," Liam explains. "Mark and I have a very tight shorthand language. He'll work with his stunt guys first and devise the fight, show it to me, and after we've wrapped for the day, we'll rehearse in a space that has an outline of the set and all of that."

"I might have a couple of notes and say, 'We already did that in Taken 2,' 'Can I do a kick there instead of a punch?' Then we slowly go through the fight, grab the other actors if and when we can, and go through the fight over and over and over again. When we finally get to shoot the fight on set, we act as if it's the first time we've ever done it, so the audience believes it's real. But also, because we've rehearsed it to death, no one's going to get hurt."