New Book Reveals Bruce Willis Almost Died During Filming of Iconic Movie, Not First Choice for Casting
It may be hard for the younger generations to believe, but there was a time when nobody in Hollywood thought Bruce Willis could carry an action movie.
A new book about heroes of the silver screen provides a glimpse into the series of events that led Willis to his starring role in the beloved film “Die Hard,” according to the New York Post.
The book also relates a story about a stunt from the film in which Willis came pretty close to “dying hard” himself.
Nick de Semlyen chronicled the stories behind the testosterone-laden shoot-em-ups of that era in “The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage.”
In the section about Willis, de Semlyen rattled off a list of stars who reportedly turned down the role of wise-cracking cop John McClane, according to the Post.
The list reads like a stroll down Hollywood’s famous Walk of Fame, with names like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Al Pacino and Harrison Ford.
Every one of those actors and more turned down the role when the script for “Die Hard” was making the rounds, because the character was a wisecracking cop viewed by some of the stars as too much of a loser for them to risk their reputations on.
That left the producers with one option left: Willis, who, at the time, was “just” a TV star, played a wisecracking private detective in the wildly popular sitcom “Moonlighting.”
It turned out to be a stroke of casting genius.
The first shot of the film very nearly became his last day of shooting — ever — according to de Semlyen, as quoted in the Post.
Willis was directed to jump from a ledge on a five-story parking garage onto an air bag below.
“As he did, large plastic bags of gasoline were detonated, unleashing a fireball that blew Willis, he claimed, right to the edge of the bag,” de Semlyen said.
“When I landed, everyone came running over to me and I thought they were going to say, ‘Great job! Attaboy!’” Willis later recalled. “And what they were doing is seeing if I’m alive because I almost missed the bag.”
Despite its rough start in the casting phase, and despite the naysayers like Schwarzenegger, who mocked Willis’ “toothpick arms,” “Die Hard” ultimately surprised everyone by becoming a huge audience favorite.
“Willis’s regular-Joe appearance intensified the tension considerably,” de Semlyen wrote, in an exclusive excerpt published by Entertainment Weekly.
“Bruce is not imposing. You don’t meet him and go, ‘Whoo!'” says [producer Lawrence] Gordon. “It really worked for the film, ’cause you believe he may not make it.”
No word from either the Post or Entertainment Weekly gave people a clue as to whether de Semlyen answered the one question most “Die Hard” fans really want to know: Should the film should be classified as a Christmas movie?
But it did acknowledge that the faith of the producers and casting directors was rewarded when “Die Hard” became the top-grossing action flick of 1988.
It also launched Bruce Willis’ career as a top box-office draw in action movies for the next several decades.
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