(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Tue 2 December 2025 1:30, UK
There was a point when Bruce Willis was one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood.
Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that there was a point when Willis was one of the most sought-after action stars in Hollywood, his streak in the legendary Die Hard movies, alongside his other major action titles, including Armageddon and The Fifth Element, making him more than a seasoned professional when it comes to those familiar fast-paced, heart-thumping sequences.
As with most actors shoehorned into a specific typecast or genre, however, Willis never really saw himself that way, nor did any of his favourite films come from the more obvious action-style choices. In fact, when faced with the question, Willis singled out three seemingly random movies as the ones he considered his most important: 12 Monkeys, Looper, and Moonrise Kingdom.
While there could be many reasons why he remained especially proud of those titles, one of the main things was that they were layered with different kinds of emotions, like romance, which you probably wouldn’t have expected to have been as affected by on first watch. According to Willis, this makes the experience even richer, even if sometimes it feels entirely contradictory on paper.
As he once explained to Huffington Post, “There’s some romance in the science fiction of Looper that we didn’t really talk about. We were just talking about, ‘OK, here’s what we want to see happen in this scene – and now you’re going to do this and you’re going to do some horrific things.’ But the stuff that comes out of it is kind of romantic.”
When it comes to physically and emotionally demanding roles, Willis has also had his share of challenges. With the 2003 war thriller Tears of the Sun, Willis noticed the same kinds of themes – action undercut by the tender threads of kindness and unity. But there was also a lot that made being on set difficult, beyond the movie’s tone and messages, when looking at the bigger picture.
As he reflected, “This was by far the hardest film I’ve ever done, both physically and emotionally. It was really tough. I don’t think this is an action movie, I think this is a movie about the human heart and about heroism and about helping people. At its heart, it’s about good triumphing over evil.”
One of the reasons why the stakes were especially high during filming was the fact that ex-US Navy SEAL Harry Humphries was a technical adviser on the film, and made the actors go through a version of boot camp to make them appear more like their characters.
During this experience, they used their characters’ names and carried the same hefty packs as their characters through warm and humid weather conditions. That’s not the only thing that made the experience difficult. According to reports, Willis also struggled to get on with director Antoine Fuqua, though it’s unclear why other than vague recollections about the pair struggling to see eye to eye.
Willis also later filed a lawsuit against the studio for an injury he acquired during filming, though with how stringent things seemed on set, most actors leaving that set would likely have probably developed a new relationship with the job itself and the things they’re willing to put themselves through in the name of art.
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