Bruce Willis Interview on ‘Live Free or Die Hard’

Mandy @ Gone Hollywood | Thursday, June 28, 2007

Almost two decades later, Bruce Willis is at it again with his latest installment, ‘Live Free or Die Hard.’ Willis talks candidly about everything in the film, including why director Len Wiseman (who saw the original “Die Hard” at the age of sixteen) was a perfect fit for the sequel and how this film is the only one this summer with real, live performed stunts.

Bruce Willis ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ Pic

Q: Was it easy to slip back into the role?

BW: Pretty much. I didn’t think it was gonna be as easy as it turned out to be, physically it was more difficult. I had to get myself in shape. The idea of getting yourself in shape for a film like this is so your muscles are big enough that they protect your bones so your bones don’t shatter when you dive on a concrete floor. That was the plan, anyway. But I still got beat up.

Q: What do you like most about playing McClane?

BW: I like the sensibility of this character, I like his attitude. A good friend of mine, Jason Smilovic, who’s a screenwriter — he wrote the film “Lucky Number Slevin” — he helped us out about a year ago, when we first started talking about storyline elements. He started talking about the “mythology of Die Hard.” I’d never heard that said before, and it kinda makes sense that in a film that spans twenty one years, and over four films…for me, it’s kind of an interesting thing to go back and look at the first film and watch myself age over the 21 years… his lack of respect for authority, I think, is the thing that is most in line with my South Jersey sensibility. And why I was talking about the mythology of “Die Hard” is that there are certain things, there are certain elements that the audience expects from John McClane that happen in this film. That he loves his family. Loves his country. He’s not gonna let anyone do harm, he’s not gonna let anyone hurt anybody that’s innocent or can’t defend themselves.

We did have to kind of…be cautious about the whole 9/11 issue, because we didn’t want to make light of, or dishonor, the memory of the folks who lost their lives on that day. That said, the other three “Die Hard”s used the word “terrorist” all the time and just kind of took it for granted, prior to 9/11…it was just a story point. But it was always terrorists who were thieves, or terrorists who had some other plan. But we had to pay a little bit more attention to it on this one.

[...]

Q: How do you feel that this “Die Hard” improves upon ones of the past?

BW: Being able to look back at all three films is something I did before we started shooting this film. At the time, we tried to make a good film. “Die Hard 3″ is great, it has great elements in it. “Die Hard 2,” because it came out so soon after the first film — the first film is so well built, and so well crafted and so claustrophobic, and the good guys and the bad guys and the hostages are all in one building, it’s almost a perfect action scenario– the second film was kind of everywhere, we were all over the place. In retrospect I didn’t like the fact that the second film was so self-referential to the first film.

But there are big “Die Hard” moments in the second film; me jumping out of that helicopter onto the wing of that airplane is a “Die Hard” moment. And the sequel business is a much different thing now, sequels are treated with a lot more care and a lot more respect these days than they were in the early years of sequels being made. I think we were really fortunate to have Sam Jackson and Jeremy Irons in the third film. I like that it was set in New York. I like the idea of my character being an alcoholic in the third one. And he’s just, you know, a mess and he still has to deal with these terrorists, or fake terrorists. There are big “Die Hard” elements in that; me, that dam breaking and me riding that truck kind of surfing on that big dump truck I thought was interesting.

But this film, I didn’t have to do. I didn’t have to do this one, I really could have retired undefeated, but I always wanted to make a film that was much closer in nature and in the overall feel, much closer to the first film, which for me is the only really great one. And we did it. When you see it, you’ll see what I mean, it really lives up to the mythology of “Die Hard” and it lives up to, I think, what the audiences have come to expect.

Check out the entire interview Willis did with Rotten Tomatoes and get the answer to whether there will be a Die Hard 5. Here’s a hint, the script is already in the works.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Bruce Willis Interview on ‘Live Free or Die Hard’

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