After securing his status as a heartthrob thanks to his recurring role in The Hunger Games films, Liam is now set to take on the role of a lifetime, starring in the long-awaited sequel Independence Day: Resurgence.
Having first watched – and loved – the Will Smith movie as an impressionable seven-year-old, Liam admits he nearly passed up the opportunity to star in the sequel for fear of not doing it justice.
‘Seeing Will Smith punching an alien in the face was a pretty pivotal point in my life. I honestly did have concerns about it before I met Roland [Emmerich, the director],’ he explains. ‘And then when I sat down with him, he made me feel really good about it. The fact that he was excited about making another one – I just had to trust him.’
While fans will ultimately be the ones to decide whether or not his gamble paid off, Liam for one isn’t worried.
‘Everyone has been saying: “How do you top it?”’ he says of the original, which has made more than $817 million to date. ‘It’s just a million times bigger than the first one.’