Bruce Willis: No Kidding

At any rate, neither his lifestyle nor the demise of "Moonlighting" hurt Willis in the least. By then, he had made Blind Date, which didn't exactly earn him Academy Award nomination, but which showed a promising movie talent. Sunset followed next, a film that was bludgeoned, and only grossed $4.5 million. But the fact that nothing in the movie seemed to work, kept Willis from taking the heat for its failure. And then came Die Hard. Had it bombed, or bad Willis's performance been off, he might have been thrown to the wolves, given his widely reported S5-milIion salary. But the movie did not bomb. It grossed $80 million, and Willis got high marks for his portrayal of the cop John McClane.

For the sequel, he'll get 57 million.

And he no longer, if he ever did, worries about a bomb.

"I don't keep score the way other people do," he says, getting up, moving restlessly around his office. "I don't worry that if I don't do a good film every time, they're not going to want me any more. It's not about that. I'll do films for no money. I chose not to take a salary for In Country [he'll get a hefty piece of the gross, however] because I wanted to do the film and it was low budget. But in order to do films like In Country, I have to give back a commercial vehicle like Die Hard. Or Die Hard II."

Willis excuses himself for a second time. And, in what is perhaps his only attempt at levity, mumbles as he walks out of the office, "She's scribbling notes. He's going to the bathroom again."

In Willis's climb to the top, even his two missteps--Sunset and his first album, "The Return of Bruno"--were cushioned by his safety net of wide popularity. People went to his movies to see him and bought his album to hear him, bought 1.5 million copies in fact. "And it wasn't that good," he admits. "It was a lot of other people's opinions of what I should do and I was really finding my way, searching for how I wanted to present my musical sensibilities. Most of the album didn't cut it for me."

And the new one?

"This album is different. It's much more of my own musical taste. I wrote five of the songs."

Did he work on his voice?

"Naw, I just quit drinking."

Two people enter his office bearing artwork. Several large photographs already adorn one wall and Willis, sitting up on the couch now, consults with the two on where to hang another photograph and a lithograph of a George Bellows painting called "A Stag at Sharkey's." There are no photographs of Willis in his office, though outside, where the secretaries sit, movie posters have been hung. An avid reader, Willis has a collection of books in his office and reports that recently he spent $1,500 during one trip to the book store. Currently, he is reading James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, about the Civil War. At times, you get the feeling you might like to know Willis, under different

circumstances.

But not these.

The picture people exit and now Willis turns the tables, grilling me. Will everything he said be printed? Told no, he begins to fret: "Every interview that I've ever done has been just as earnest and just as frank as I've been with you and I see things get so bastardized. One thing I've said becomes the focal point and they don't say anything about my world view, about the books I read, about my feelings about racism, that's what drives me nuts."

He walks over to the window and stares out. "I'm pissed off now," he says unhappily. "Naw, not at you. But I've said it all. I've poured my heart to you and told you what's really inside of me, what is the real person here. I didn't color it, I didn't hide it, I didn't try to make you like me. It was just it, just me. And half of it's going to be gone and what's going to be in there is the titillating stuff. That's what always goes in there."

He turns back. "Sec, when money's no longer a concern, you have to answer that big question. What are you gonna do that matters' What are you going to do that's right? I'm trying to figure out what I need to be doing as a human being on the planet."

You have a hint of a stutter, I say.

Willis offers a small smile. "My mind works faster than my mouth does," he says.

_______________

Diane K. Shah, who writes frequently about the entertainment industry, has a suspense novel coming out in the spring.

Pages: 1 2 3 4



Comments