Bruce Willis did an interview on BBC’s One Show earlier this month to promote the latest Die Hard movie. The interview got a lot of press because Bruce seemed drunk. He slurred his words, sounded incoherent at times, and was a dud overall. The British press lambasted him, but I saw the interview and it wasn’t horrible or anything. (It’s available in two parts on YouTube. The most awkward parts are around 3:20 and 8:00 in this first video.) If anything he sounded like the drunk dude at the corner bar who thinks he’s being philosophical, makes little sense and is generally harmless. This is his job, though, and he should strive to at least be sober when he’s doing promotional duties. Can you imagine if he was wasted like that on Letterman or Leno? That story would have had a lot more mileage.
Willis covers the new issue of GQ, and his interview may reveal why he acted like that on British television. He admits that he’s no longer abstaining from alcohol and that he enjoys “wine with dinner.” Here are some excerpts from his GQ interview, with more at the source:
Bruce Willis on his advice to actors:
“I recently heard one of my fellow actors say it in three words: ‘Just shut up.’ Just go silent. Maybe it’s being older; maybe that’s just a tiny tag of wisdom, that you’ve got to think about something before you say something. I once thought that somehow, with this job, also comes the inherent right to say whatever the f*k I want regardless of whether I’m right or wrong or think that anybody needs to hear it or shouldhear it.”
…on never being nominated for an Oscar:
“I don’t think about it too much. It just always has seemed whimsical to me, to think about it. You don’t get an Oscar for comedy, and you don’t get it for shooting people. You get it for novelty, of being fascinating to watch in some character role. But the Die Hard stuff and Dirty Harry are all fraught with the same thing that every story is fraught with.”
…on his sobriety: “I had been sober [for a while]. But once I realized that I wasn’t gonna run myself off the pier of life with alcohol, drinking vodka out of the bottle every day… I have wine now, mostly when I eat.”
…on maybe trying out theater:
“I’d like to go and do theater. It seems like a more reasonable job, more manageable.”
…on future plans and if he’d pursue politics:
And nobody wants to hear this bad news, but we’re all dying on some level. I’m going to try to keep the machine moving forward as much as possible and not have to think about the eventuality of becoming more frail and less able to do the work. I know that I’m not going into politics. That’s not an option. I was asked, and I said, “Did you hear any of the stuff about me when I was a kid?”
…on Bill O’Reilly and his books: “I’ve been reading a lot of—I read a lot anyway, but—I’ve been reading a lot, in Europe. … [Bill O’Reilly] wrote about the assassination of Lincoln and the assassination of JFK. I learned more things from him and his story of JFK than I ever knew. Bill O’Reilly is a great researcher. Whatever you think about his character that he plays in the news, he’s a great researcher.”
I still find Bruce Willis to be incredibly hot in theory, but there’s something sad about him when he’s drunk. He was very soft spoken and goofy and he lost his appeal for me in that interview. He had more than a couple glasses of wine at dinner that’s for sure.
Huffington Post reminds us that Bruce got sober around 1988, and that he quit his gig as a spokesperson for Seagram’s Wine Coolers because he quit drinking. I wonder if he was sober for over 20 years.
A Good Day to Die Hard is out in the US on Valentine’s Day. Can you believe that this franchise is still going strong after 25 years? The first movie came out in 1988. Matt Damon could have easily done that with the Bourne movies, he could have ridden that franchise into the ground but he knew when to step down. Bruce doesn’t mind. He said in that BBC interview that he’d do a sixth Die Hard movie.
In these photos below Bruce is shown in Paris yesterday receiving the “Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres.” It’s a prestigious award from the French Minister of Culture for “significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields.” His wife looks really good. She’s all of 34 now, and she had a baby about 10 months ago.
Photo credit: WENN.com
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