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As he returns in a long-awaited new Die Hard romp, 52-year-old action star Bruce Willis says he's happy to reprise his character - but he wants respect as an actor too
It's amazing how well Bruce Willis has aged. He probably looks more like an action hero today at 52 than when he was first cast as John McClane in Die Hard two decades ago.
In a sharp grey suit and lily-white shirt, he dresses like a man who earns his pay cheque. He's cool, but he knows it.
Recently, though, Bruce Willis has been acting more like a computer nerd. He went on the movie fan website AintitCoolNews under a pseudonym to attack the studio and makers of Die Hard 4.0 for demanding the swearing be toned down so it received a rating that would allow teenagers in to see the film.
Willis says of his internet adventures: "Well, so much of my interaction and talking about films is with writers, reporters, critics, whatever. I had a website of my own up for a couple of years because I wanted to talk to people that were just fans of the films.
"Those guys and girls who use AintitCoolNews are passionate film fans, they're from all over the world. They're very vocal in their like and dislike of any film or any film director or actor and that is who I wanted to talk to.
"I didn't want to talk to someone who would pull their punches, talk to someone who would handle what they say in a politically correct way."
In an age when stars are protected by their publicists and encouraged to be as bland as possible in interviews, Willis, in his opening salvo, took the kid gloves off.
The obvious place to start was by asking Willis about the photographs taken by Annie Leibovitz of him on a boat hanging out with his ex-wife Demi Moore, with whom he has three children, and her younger beau, Ashton Kutcher.
The shots published in Vanity Fair just didn't seem right because Hollywood break-ups are supposed to be of the Kramer vs. Kramer variety.
Willis responds: "I'm at a point in my life where I've spent many years kind of closed off from the world. It was the same reason I wanted to talk to the guys at AintItCoolNews. I was tired of being up in the tower.
"I live my life as a regular guy, I come and go and I don't fight any more; I've got nothing to fight against.
"But we all do really get along, and it's a very modern way of dealing with extended family, and I'm sure not everybody can do it. It is one way of doing it that we have found has been successful. It all came about from one single phrase: put the children first. It allowed us to be friends; it allowed me to become friends with Ashton."
While there is no surprise in Willis espousing the sanctity of family values (he reveals he is hoping to star in a film with his oldest daughter, Rumer, if all the contracts are agreed), I baulk at the suggestion he has given up fighting.
Wasn't this the man who offered a million dollars' ransom for whoever captured Saddam Hussein (US Army rules prevented him paying up), joined a pro-Israeli forum during the recent Lebanon crisis and has been vocal in his support of several Republican Presidents?
I put this to him, but he protests that the common perception of him as a Republican is wrong: "I don't think that I'm anything anymore. I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat. If you have to put me in a category say I'm an independent. I've been telling people that for a few years now.
"I'm back to the point of being disillusioned with the world of politics. I support the men and women who are still fighting in this very desperate war, and while no one can be pro-war, it just seems like a silly thing to say.
"So much of my political mindset is in contradiction. My Republican point of view is, very simply, I'm for smaller companies, more conservative government, less government intrusion and lower taxes.
"On the other hand, I want the Government to take care of the kids in foster care. I want them to take care of the elderly who really can't take care of themselves. It seems like the business of politics is to do nothing but give the illusion of doing something."
Demi Moore may have a man on her arm but Willis remains single, or more correctly - given the fact that he has been rumoured to be dating nearly every Hollywood starlet he is pictured with - he is without a permanent partner.
On his love-life, Willis is dismissive of the rumours but does have one fear: "Gossip is a billion-dollar industry worldwide but it really has no true meaning right now. It may be at some point in 25 years from now, maybe gossip will become the thing that is remembered as history. Who knows what is going to be?"
He is already cautious about what the truth is, and says that he now gets his news from the internet because he doesn't believe what is being reported to him on television.
The more we talk, the more it dawns on me just how closely Willis' life is reflected in the persona of John McClane. Willis was an unusual choice for the action hero and only a string of coincidences led to him getting the part.
First, the leading action heroes of the day, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, reportedly turned down the role. Then the dates of filming clashed with Moonlighting and it was only when Cybill Shepherd became pregnant that an 11-week break in the shooting schedule allowed him enough free time to shoot the film.
The reason McClane swore so much was that Willis, finally liberated from the no-swearing rules of TV, decided to let rip and allow his own vernacular to shine through, ad libbing most of the comedic lines.
He says now: "I did Die Hard when I was still learning how to act. So much of who I was then, a guy coming out of South Jersey having done a couple of years of TV, was invested in that character: my sense of humour, my disrespect for authority, my love of family, my country, my South Jersey sarcasm."
Willis is resigned to the fact none of the sequels will ever be as good as the original. He acknowledges that the second Die Hard film wasn't so hot because, made at a time when the sequel business was still in its infancy, it was too self-referential and his character had not moved on.
As for the third in the series, Die Hard with a Vengeance: "Thank God Samuel Jackson and Jeremy Irons were in it."
Die Hard III was made around the same time as Willis had been reinvented as an actor by his portrayal of the boxer in Pulp Fiction. His poor performance in the Die Hard movie showed his sense of frustration with his own career at that point. He even wrote himself a leading role, but Hudson Hawk ended up getting some of the worst reviews since Ishtar.
Pulp Fiction gave Willis credibility and allowed him to move his career in a different direction.
Now, in between the big action film paydays such as The Siege and 16 Blocks, Willis says: "I get to work one day on a Rick Linklater film [Fast Food Nation], I get to work two days on Grindhouse with Robert Rodriguez and I get calls from people whose work I admire and so something seems to work."
Willis produced Die Hard 4.0 and his hand is all over the character. Twelve years since the last episode, McClane is still divorced, single and zealous in his paternal duties.
The action and his attitude remain positively old-school. If this Die Hard is a success he may do another one before his body pleads for a rest.
On his career, he is still not satisfied. He says: "Just sticking around for 22 years is a feat in itself - a lot of people don't have that. My goal is to have Clint Eastwood's career."
Only a fool would not want Eastwood's career, but there is a hint of something more profound and a change in direction envisaged by Willis' words.
Ironically, the roots of this can be found in Hudson Hawk, which until recently was considered his biggest failure. It is having a second life.
"Hudson Hawk is underrated," he says. "But it has really caught on as a cult film, it is having resurgence on DVD and it has been, kind of, rediscovered.
"At the time people didn't get it because it was satire and it was just too hip for the room."
I get the feeling that often Willis sees himself as being too hip for the room and, on many counts, he's right. -
- Independent
Lowdown
Who: Bruce Willis
Born: March 19 1955, Idar-Oberstein, West Germany
Key roles: Moonlighting (TV, 1985-1989), Blind Date, (1987), Die Hard (1988), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Die Hard 2 (1990), Hudson Hawk (1991), The Last Boy Scout (1991), Death Becomes Her (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Color of Night (1994), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Twelve Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Siege (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Tears of the Sun (2003), Hostage (2005), Sin City (2005)
Latest: Die Hard 4.0 opens at cinemas August 9
