Mark Vanselow Ran Wrong-Way Highway Passes at Liam Neeson for “The Mongoose” — and Lost Mornings to Kangaroos

• Mark Vanselow directed "The Mongoose" after 30 films doubling and coordinating for Liam Neeson.
• Neeson says stunt drivers came straight at him while he drove the wrong way down highways.
• The unit shot in Melbourne doubling for Texas and stopped every time kangaroos crossed the road.

Posted: October 29, 2026

Vanselow has doubled Liam Neeson since 1998 and worked as stunt coordinator and second unit director across more than 30 films with him. "The Mongoose," out October 30, is his first time in the director's chair, and the thing he describes is the job swap rather than the gag list: as a second unit director or stunt coordinator you are constantly acting on somebody else's vision and shooting coverage from several angles because you cannot be sure what the director will want. In the chair, he says, you get to employ your own vision — but then you owe every department head a clear version of it.

The driving is the headline. Neeson, who says plainly that he is not a car person and has never been interested in speed, describes running highways in the wrong direction with stunt drivers coming toward him — the oncoming-traffic pass, staged so the hero car reads as isolated in the lane while the approaching vehicles are the unit's own. Vanselow's answer on the hardest sequence to pull off was about the geography rather than the hit: Melbourne standing in for Texas, with the picture cars posing as local traffic, and a driving area where herds of kangaroos crossed every morning. The call went out over the radio, everyone slowed and pulled over, and the action had to be reshaped — a kangaroo in the frame is a continuity problem in a film set in Texas.

IMDb lists Chris Weir as stunt coordinator and second unit director on the picture, with Hayden Stewart as assistant stunt coordinator and Grant Fletcher doubling Neeson.

Source: ComingSoon.net — Liam Neeson Recalls ‘Scary’ Wrong-Way Car Chases in The Mongoose

Learn more on IMDb: The Mongoose (2026) · Mark Vanselow