Bruce Willis turns 68: Action hero forced to say goodbye to Hollywood

Who was going to tell Bruce Willis in 2012, when he starred in five films, that ten years later he would retire? Who was going to tell him, officer John McClain, boxer Butch Coolidge, survivor David Dunn, among so many other unbeatable characters he brought to life that only ten years separated him from silence? Only a disease as serious as the frontotemporal dementia he was diagnosed with last year could put an end to such a prolific career. And maybe that’s why his departure from the industry is like the collapse of a fabulous hot rod: sudden, confusing and painful.

Before you say goodbye HollywoodWillis, who turns 68 on Sunday, March 19, has sold the rights to his image so it can be used in future AI-powered projects. A true trailblazer, he was the first actor to do so, given that his screen presence would not be as long as it had been since 1980 when he made his big screen debut as an extra in The New York Times. The first mortal sin, ”in the cast of which was Frank Sinatra. It would be humanly impossible to see all the films in which he starred: not counting those that will be released later, there are more than 100 of them.

But let’s rewind a bit: how did this American star, born in what was then West Germany in 1955, raised in western New Jersey and nicknamed by school friends where he was very popular, fake his taste for acting? Bruno? It all started when he was a student, back in the 1970s, when he joined the drama department at Montclair State College, working as a security guard and worker at a chemical plant.

However, his intuition told him to take a risky step: drop out of college and move to New York to make a name for himself as an actor. There he worked nights – working at a bar and working as a waiter – attending various auditions. His first break came in 1977 when he landed a role in Heaven and Earth, an off-Broadway play. He then continued to appear in television commercials and made occasional appearances on series such as Miami Vice and Hart to Hart. Until in 1984, her performance in Sam Shepard’s play “A Fool for Love” did not receive universal recognition.

Bruce Willis, new action hero

Through his extensive career, Bruce Willis He should be appreciated for his most iconic roles. The first of these, no doubt, was to be the one that made him famous in the United States and with whom he starred together. Cybill ShepherdStory: Detective David Addison Jr. of Moonlighting, an ABC television series that ran from 1985 to 1990 for five seasons. It was a comedic role that may not have matched his characters Charles Bronson or John Wayne, although it was with his idol Cary Grant, and helped him establish himself in an industry hungry for new names.

After appearing as extras in many big-screen productions and enduring rejection (such as Desperately Seeking Susan), his first major film role was not long in coming: in 1987, he shared roles with Kim Bassinger in the romantic comedy Blind Date. “. However, a year later, a film appeared on his horizon that turned him into a memorable action figure: Die Hard put him in the shoes of John McClain, a former police officer who faces a group of criminals on the heights of a Los Angeles skyscraper.

comic style Bruce WillisLuckily, John McTiernan didn’t dilute him in this film. On the contrary, his character could run barefoot on broken glass, jump from the rooftops of Nakatomi Plaza, without giving up the bulletproof sarcasm with which he also beat his enemies. He may not have known it, but with him was born, as the American film critic Adam Nyman noted in his article, “a new attractive archetype of the action movie.” A hero who, unlike the expressionless Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude Van Damme, allowed himself to cultivate a certain sense of humor.

Die Hard spawned a five-film franchise, all of which starred Willis, although none of them reached the same level as the first, which ended up as an unlikely Christmas classic. Two sequels to the saga were released in the 1990s, a decade when the actor was looking to take a different path and prove his versatility. Proof of this are “The Hudson Hawk” and “The Color of the Night” or a kind of parody of himself, which he did in “The Gambler” directed by Robert Altman. But, curiously, it was the minor role that gave him his golden moment: the role of the lovable boxer Butch in “pulp Fiction”(1994) author Quentin Tarantino.

Between auteur cinema and advertising

There was a time he once confessed Bruce Willis to the magazine squire, in which those who hired him told him, “We’re going to create a character that will be you so that you can interpret it for who you are.” He thought it was funny, but after Pulp Fiction things definitely changed for him. For example, while his role as a time traveler in Terry Gilliam’s futuristic 12 Monkeys brought him back to being a satirical action hero, he was able to give his character some depth by allowing him to play an inhabited vulnerability under her skin. and an ironic glow that would reappear in other films.

These traits were present in the projects he worked on. M. Night Shyamalan”Sixth Sense” (Sixth Sense), “Invulnerable” (protege) and “Glass”, which allowed him to develop a more dramatic edge. These were probably the last films in which he worked as a main character in auteur cinema, with the exception of his appearances in Wes Anderson’s acclaimed “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Ocean’s Twelve” (Big New Scam) directed by Steven Soderbergh. Because since then, the translator has returned to the tough, lonely and humorous guy over and over again in mostly one-off commercials, with some brief flashes, as in “no city”.

Maybe because of all this we never saw Bruce Willis parade like an Oscar nominee? What could Demi Moore’s ex-husband, now married to model Emma Hemming, lack in order to be taken into account by the Hollywood Academy? There are those who would dare to say that ambition. In 2020, regarding the premiere of “The Hard Murder”, the critic Guardian he described him as an actor who lives in “a gray area between zero fuss and little effort”. But there will be no shortage of those who diagnose the Mecca of cinema with blindness. Both positions seem to be justified.

Already retired, with a degenerative disease on his back, Bruce Willis he fails to give the same glorious interpretation as those on which he based his fame and prestige. The American press reported that he often forgot his lines on set. But for now, he can hardly care to ingratiate himself with Hollywood when a role awaits him that he has sometimes put off because of his job: that of a father. He has six daughters, three with Moore and two with Hemming. “I am in love with my wife and daughters. I need very little. Friends come, children come when they can. We’re having dinner. And I enjoy playing with their impulse. he said wisely ten years ago.

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