“Taken 2” braces for a down-to-the-wire action sequence
between two fathers, one exacting revenge and the other trying to keep his
family alive. Liam Neeson reprises his
role as Bryan Mills, a CIA operative with an unmatched set of skills who is
pitted against Murad (Rade Sherbedgia) who in turn is hell-bent on taking down
Mills and the rest of his family for the death of his son in Bryan’s hands.
“TAKEN 2” reunites Neeson with his co-stars Famke Janssen
and Maggie Grace, who play Bryan's estranged wife and his precious daughter.
“Bryan's a total superhero,” says Janssen, weighing in on what made audiences
connect with the first film. “TAKEN really came at a time when people needed
that in their lives, because it's about family and protecting your family. He's
a very American hero.”
As heard in “Taken 2’s” trailers, Murad’s line “He slaughtered our men, our brothers, our
sons. We will find him. We will have our revenge,” sets the tone for
his role as the movie’s lead villain. Acclaimed
character actor Rade Sherbedgia takes on the role, which director Olivier
Megaton promises is “a far cry from your typical bad guy. Murad is pursuing Bryan for a big and very
fair reason, which is that he wants his justice for his son, who died at
Bryan’s hand.”
Unlike most movie villains, Murad desires neither power
nor money, and he possesses no special training. “Murad is not a criminal by
profession,” says Sherbedgia. “He is not a warrior. But he has made it his
mission to extract justice from Bryan.”
Megaton looked at a number of actors for the role, and
selected Sherbedgia after the actor sent some trial footage he shot himself.
“While watching Rade’s footage, I was suddenly dropped into the reality of
Murad’s situation,” the director enthuses. “And Rade adds so much to the movie,
because he's a father, too. Liam is a father protecting his daughter and Rade
is a father avenging his son.”
Bryan’s encounters with Murad are memorable, and Neeson
is particularly fond of his character's final battle with the Balkan baddie.
“Bryan, at this stage of his journey, is genuinely sick of killing,” says
Neeson. “He has physically become a machine when he gets into the mindset of
taking out these bad guys. I think his big worry is that the machine may take
over from the human being. For the sake of his daughter, his ex-wife and his
own soul, he wants to stop.”
Rade Sherbedgia is one of Croatia's best known and most
highly praised actors, with a career on screen spanning more than four decades.
HIs international breakthrough came in
1988, when he was cast by Menahem Golan to play a captain interrogating a woman
who had saved thousands of children from the Holocaust in “Hanna's War.” He
starred alongside Ellen Burstyn, Donald Pleasance and David Warner.
Forced to flee to Belgrade, Serbia after the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, Sherbedgia performed in a number of Western European films
before immigrating to the United States. Sherbedgia made an instant mark on
Hollywood, starring in films such as “Mission: Impossible II,” “Eyes Wide Shut,”
“Snatch,” “Shooter” and “Batman Begins.”
More recently, Sherbedgia played the role of Gregorovich,
a renowned foreign wand-maker, in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part
1.” He had a key role in Angelina
Jolie's debut feature as a director, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which
premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011.
“Taken 2” opens October 4 in more than 100 screens
nationwide from 20th Century Fox thru Warner Bros.
Like Manila Life on Facebook to be updated.
