Liam Neeson was not a fan of his iconic Taken speech

Liam Neeson was not initially a fan of his iconic speech in the hit 2008 action film Taken.

In a new inteview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar nominee has revealed he wasn't initially thrilled with the speech: “I certainly did sound scary, but I thought it was corny.

"It was a cornball. I really did feel that. It’s nice to be proven wrong.”

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In the 2008 movie, Neeson's character's daughter is kidnapped and while on the phone to the criminals, he has a monologue which goes: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career.

"Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”

It's become a meme in itself, and is one of the most quoted lines in recent movie history.

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Neeson has been open in the past about how he expected the hit action movie to flop. Instead, it spurned two sequels, a spin-off TV show and grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide.

Neeson previously said: “I thought, ‘Well, this is going to go straight-to-video. A short little European thriller, it might play okay for a couple weeks in France and then it will go straight-to-video."

He praised the way the film was marketed for how it became a success: “But Fox took it and they very cleverly did a good trailer and put it during various sporting events around the country and they made it a real success. I remember the first weekend it came in at No. 3, and then it came up to No. 2 and then No. 1, and then it went down to No. 4, and it came up to No. 3 again. It just had this extraordinary cycle.”

Before Taken, Neeson was primarily known as a dramatic actor but has since mostly starred in action films such as Non-Stop, The Commuter and Cold Pursuit.

Taken is streaming on Disney+.

Watch below: Liam Neeson demonstrates how to throw a 'good' fake punch