By Jeff Pfeiffer
There’s a moment in the first episode of NBC’s new action drama series Taken — beginning Monday, Feb. 27 — that should bring a smile to the faces of fans of the feature-film franchise on which the show is based: One bad guy, marveling at the fighting and shooting techniques of young Bryan Mills (Clive Standen), says to another, “I’ll tell you this — the kid’s got some skills.”
That line calls to mind the iconic utterance from the later-in-life Mills, as delivered by the film series’ star Liam Neeson, who coolly informed the villains of the first movie who have taken his daughter of his “very particular set of skills.” He then proceeded to demonstrate those skills — gleaned from his past as a special ops agent — by methodically kicking their asses on his way to getting his daughter back.
If you’ve ever wondered how the elder Mills got enough of those skills to run and fight his way through Europe even as a middle-aged man, this new prequel series should help show you.
Although the series — which costars Jennifer Beals and is executive produced by Luc Besson, who cowrote and -produced the original films — portrays the Neeson character decades earlier as a 30-something man, it is still somehow set in the modern day. When we talked with Standen about the show, he explained that the series is basically a reinvention of the Mills character.
“[We’re] just taking that character and updating him just as any other franchise, whether it be James Bond, or even Mission: Impossible. Ethan Hunt — from the original Mission: Impossible, a really old film — they updated that. It’s just taking a character and reinventing him.”
But in reinventing a character who was unique primarily because he was a middle-aged action hero of a sort audiences weren’t necessarily used to seeing, and fitting him more into the traditional action hero mold, is there a danger of watering down the character and story? Standen said he had similar concerns when he was first up for the role.
“The unique selling point [of the films] is this older man beating up guys half his age,” Standen remembered thinking after his agent called him about the series. “You take that away, and then what have you got? So I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s full of car explosions and things, and it’s not really my cup of tea.’ And they said, ‘Well, that’s not the case, because Alex Cary from Homeland has written it [ed. note: Cary is also the showrunner], and you obviously haven’t read it, Clive.”’
So Standen read it, and came away realizing that Mills is just a normal guy, not a superhero with all kinds of gadgets.
“At the end of the day,” said Standen, “his only superpower, or his only real skill that he’s mastered, is his forward momentum, this desire to protect people. When most people panic and freeze in situations of conflict, he goes forward.”
Some of Mills’ skills are on display right away, and some of Standen’s own particular set of skills came into play in this action-oriented role.
“I’ve been doing Muay Thai boxing since I was 13 years old, and tumbling, and a lot of parkour and things, and I haven’t used that, and I’ve never wanted to because I have no desire to be the next Jason Statham or anything like that. … It needs to be in the real world for me. It has to be a real character. I can’t watch someone who’s jumping off walls, spin-kicking people. It has to be set in some kind of reality.”
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