Kangaroos threw The Mongoose's production into chaos.

Australia served as the setting for Liam Neeson's new action thriller, which sees his character, war hero Ryan "Fang" Flanagan, on the run from police as he leads them on an epic cross-country chase after being wrongly accused of murder.

And the cast and crew had to navigate an unexpected challenge caused by the country's iconic national animal, particularly when filming the car scenes.

Neeson, 74, told People: "We saw a lot of them, yeah. Especially at dusk, driving back from set. It could be very dangerous. You don't know when they're going to hop across the road."

Director Mark Vanselow, who previously worked as Neeson's stunt double, shared that filming the adrenaline-filled car chase scene did not go smoothly.

He shared: "We had a track that we were doing some of the car action on, and the kangaroos were everywhere.

"So we had to watch out for them and make sure they didn't hop in front of the vehicles while we were shooting."

The animals threatened to cause a major continuity error, given The Mongoose is set across Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas in the United States.

Neeson said: "And especially because we shot it in Melbourne and Melbourne surrounds. The movie's supposed to be set in America. So to have a kangaroo in shot, no, that wouldn't be good."

The Mongoose also stars Marisa Tomei (Tara), and she has admired Neeson for "a long time".

Last month, she told People: "I've admired him for a long time, and it seemed like it would be a film that was going to have a lot of action and fun packed in with a story that's hard to tell in a lot of other genres.

"I think this was a really great way to tell this story of the trauma of war and what our American heroes go through, and then have it be extremely entertaining at the same time, and have this incredible actor at the centre of it."

Tomei, 61, admits that the opportunity to work with Neeson was what drew her to the film.

And she was also surprised by his sense of humour.

Tomei said: "The whole kit and caboodle was really about Liam and the fun of working with him.

"Obviously, he's a legend, but once you get to meet him and speak with him, he's so funny. A lot of that humour does come through.

"The script is really well crafted to be an action movie as well as have that comedy in it, to have zingers."