ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Neeson has always been a physical force. Still, the shift in his screen presence over the past 20 years makes for a fascinating case study all the same. He may be the first genuinely A-list, alpha-male action hero to come into his own after his 50th birthday — at 55 to be exact, when he headlined the 2008 box-office sleeper “Taken,� which recalibrated his status for good.

Historically, when stars like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood played aging gunslingers, they drew on their youthful incarnations for pathos; ditto Charles Bronson, who was old even when he was young.

Neeson’s performance in “Taken� was different: it created its own context. Cast as an ex-covert operative trying to rescue his teenage daughter from a group of human traffickers, the actor leaned into a grim, world-weary rhythm that turned out to be his sweet spot. In the film’s most famous scene, Neeson delivers a tense monologue into a telephone about possessing a “particular set of skills� that the person on the other end would be better off never experiencing. That line turned into one of the 21st century’s most quotable pieces of movie dialogue — the equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger promising “I’ll be back� in “The Terminator,� or Eastwood imploring a criminal to make his day.

Between “Taken�’s increasingly cheesy sequels and a number of other, suspiciously similar lone-wolf thrillers, Neeson has become virtually synonymous with a certain kind of role: the reluctant avenger stranded in extraordinary circumstances, hesitant to throw the first punch but more than capable of delivering the last one.

Sometimes, he’s able to push through the tropes and give a real performance, as in “The Commuter,� his fourth (and best) collaboration with the Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, who understands his star’s appeal as a two-fisted family man. But even when the movies are rote, Neeson understands the assignment; he’s nimble enough to stay on the right side of the line between consistency and self-parody, and to use his stone-faced persona self-reflexively.

Neeson’s forays into comedy post-“Takenâ€� suggest a veteran with a healthy sense of humour, willing and able to style himself as the punchline to his own private joke. In Seth MacFarlane’s cowpoke pastiche “A Million Ways to Die in the West,â€� Neeson scored playing a caricature of a 10-gallon badass. He was even funnier playing himself — or an absurdist version of same — in “Ted 2,â€� projecting a low-voiced paranoia during a trip to the store to buy a box of cereal. (“I’ve been led to understand that Trix are exclusively for children,â€� he says to MacFarlane’s ursine alter ego at the register. “I won’t be followed?â€�) Best of all was Neeson on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s U.K. showbiz satire “Life’s Too Short,â€� glowering his way through an ill-fated improv comedy exercise with cringe-inducing results.

It was Neeson’s appearance on that HBO series that originally prompted director Akiva Schaffer to think that the actor would be right for his “Naked Gun� reboot — a project requiring a very specific and alchemical mix of zaniness and credibility.

The main reason Leslie Nielsen had been so brilliant as the incompetent LAPD detective Frank Drebin in the 1988 original was the aura he carried as a recognizable B-movie and prime-time veteran. In Schaffer’s “The Naked Gunâ€� — which took in $17 million in its opening weekend — Neeson does something similar, effectively channelling the stoic intensity of his post-“Takenâ€� roles into scenes calibrated for maximum silliness. (His chemistry with costar Pamela Anderson is definitely real; the pair have been acting as if they’ve become a real-life item, casting the film’s success in an even more benign light.)

Not only was Neeson an inspired choice for “The Naked Gun,� but if Schaffer is to be believed, the movie wouldn’t have happened, period, without his willingness to go the extra mile. In a recent interview with Filmmaker magazine, the director explained that Paramount requested a proof-of-concept short before signing off on the project, which meant bringing Neeson to Los Angeles to road-test his Drebin act. They shot a mock-interrogation scene showing off his deadpan interpretation of the character; at the end, Schaffer had Neeson break the fourth wall and threaten the executives, “Taken�-style.

“There’s that noir lighting on his face,â€� said Schaffer. “And (Liam) says, ‘That goes for you, too. Yes, you, the Paramount greenlight committee. I see you there. What the f—k are you waiting for? Why don’t you get your pencil pushers to sign the line?â€�

Last year, in an interview with People, Neeson said he wanted to retire from action movies because he didn’t want to come off as phoney. “You can’t fool audiences,� he said. But apparently, if you have a particular set of skills, you can do something better than fake it.

You can intimidate studios into signing off on your rebranding as a comedian — one worth taking seriously, or else.