Bruce Willis: Planet Willis

"Let's talk about your new film, Last Man Standing."

"It's a gangster picture, set in the '30s, directed by Walter Hill. Christopher Walken's in it. Bruce Dern, me. It's based on Yojimbo, the Kurosawa movie. It was an effortless film to do, fun every day. I was trying a different thing with this character, playing it very understated. He doesn't even speak unless he absolutely has to."

"Why is everyone so obsessed with gangsters in the movies?"

"Every [gangster film] is a little morality play, Good versus Evil. Most of the time, Good triumphs. It happened in Westerns like that, it happened in gangster pictures, World War II pictures, and most action pictures. People didn't judge Westerns as harshly as they judge action pictures. Nowadays, everyone knows the grosses on opening weekend. I mean, my dad will call me up and talk about the first weekend box office..."

"Your dad's a welder in New Jersey, right?"

"Yes. Well, no. Can we clear this up? Because he's really annoyed at me for this. I always say that he's a welder. And while he is a great welder, he's really a master mechanic. And because this keeps getting repeated, his friends who are welders are always giving him shit."

"Consider it straightened out. Is Last Man Standing the first period film you've done? Because I can't picture you in any clothes except modern ones,"

"Let's see... Man, I did a movie called Sunset--the second or third film I did--it was set in Hollywood in the late '20s. It didn't turn out very well, though."

"And then, right after that, you did In Country, which was a huge departure from everything you had done before."

"That was a fine movie. And it made money... I get a check from them all the time. I mean, it didn't make $100 million or anything, and there wasn't a lot of hoopla. It took a while, but it made its money back. My first child was born in Kentucky during the shooting of In Country."

"How do you keep your kids from being totally crazy? I mean, both their parents are megafamous, they must see what a stir you cause wherever you go."

"The way we work it now is that we only work in the fall and the spring, when the kids are in school. Then we get all the summers off with them and have time to do what they want. During the school year, they're home and their lives are pretty simple."

"Home being Idaho?" I ask, because it's been reported in all the newspapers.

"I'd rather not say. I don't like to talk about that stuff."

"Are you always this paranoid?"

"The way I see it, everyone's got a certain amount of airtime or magazine pages that they have to fill. And if there's nothing really there to report, they'll make up a little thing and then just make it sound very titillating. It's easy to take shots at a guy like me. I've seen it happen to other guys, too. It happened to Kevin Costner last year. Long before anybody had seen a frame of Waterworld, it had been reviewed, castigated and dismissed. And the same thing happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero. I thought that movie was really good. And in my own experience, Hudson Hawk received the same kind of treatment. People had decided that it sucked before they ever saw it."

I can't let that one slip by. "Bruce, Hudson Hawk did suck."

"You know, I've never chosen to comment on the real shit that went on during Hudson Hawk. But I'm almost pushed to now, because so many people have told their stories that I want to let the truth be known."

"Go ahead," I urge him. "Spill your guts. You'll feel better."

"But then it just opens the door for another story. And generally, my m.o. has always been, let it close. But there was some shit going on there that's never been said. At a certain point you just want to say what really happened. Here's what I'll do. Turn the tape recorder off for a minute."

"I'd rather leave it on."

But he's adamant, so I turn the tape off and he tells me an involved story about the making of Hudson Hawk, laying the blame where he thinks it belongs.

"Are they going to make any more Die Hards? Because I don't see what else they can do with them."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they did--$375 million worldwide, that's a pretty good return on their investment. Normally in films that have sequels, the third one has kind of a jinx on it. Historically speaking. But Die Hard With a Vengeance turned out all right, although I think at the end it kind of fell apart because they changed the ending at the last minute. But it did so well in the world market. So I haven't heard anything yet about a sequel, but when a film does that kind of business...that's why they call it show business. And it's easy to forget unless you work there, unless you're really inside. Then you're always aware that it's business, and that's the bottom line."

"There's a new book out, A Place to Fall," I say, "and it's about a nobody, Grade-Z actor who gets plucked from obscurity to play the leading role on a runaway hit TV show. The main character is a brawling, out-of-control asshole, and since the guy who wrote it worked as a writer and producer on 'Moonlighting,' everyone's assuming it's really about you. Have you seen it?"

"No. But I don't want to be judgmental."

"I hate when people say that. What the hell is wrong with being judgmental? I think it's what separates human beings from primates."

"Turn the tape off and I'll tell you how I feel."

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