The last movie star? Charlotte author writes that Bruce Willis is end of classic Hollywood

You’ve probably — no, definitely — seen a Bruce Willis movie.

Maybe it was in 1999 for “The Sixth Sense” (and now you lie to people and tell them you knew the twist). Probably it was 1994 and you couldn’t get enough of “Pulp Fiction.” If you’re a true fan, you might point to “Moonlighting” to really impress folks.

Obviously, you’ve seen “Die Hard.”

Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, Willis was not only one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood but one of the biggest. It wasn’t just “Die Hard” either. Willis moved his way through comedies such as “The Whole Nine Yards,” science fiction stories like “The Fifth Element” and worked with a slew of film auteurs such as Wes Anderson with “Moonrise Kingdom.”

It wasn’t just the action spectacle, it was the star. Sean O’Connell, a Charlotte resident and film writer, posits Willis as the last of the classic Hollywood movie stars in his latest book, “Bruce Willis: Celebrating the Cinematic Legacy of an Unbreakable Hollywood Icon.”

O’Connell, who also has written books on Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” and the 2000s “Spider-Man” trilogy, recently spoke with The Charlotte Observer. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What about Bruce Willis caught your attention?

“I’ve always been a huge fan, dating back to his ‘Moonlighting’ days. I appreciated his sense of humor. I liked his sarcastic tone that he brought to comedies, but also in the action genre in ‘Die Hard.’ Then over the years, I just really appreciated the risks that he took as an actor and the way that he kind of pushed himself to work with really talented filmmakers, to explore different genres that pushed him as an actor. I think he gets lumped in a lot with the Planet Hollywood guys, (like) Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sly Stallone. But I always thought he was a much better actor than either of those guys and took more versatile roles.

“So when he announced his retirement, I kind of thought that’d be a really good time to look back over a body of work and just sort of reassess (his career) through a critical lens and sort of prove that he’s more than just the action.”

A line I circled in the introduction for the book was when you referred to Willis as “the last of a dying breed” in Hollywood. With the production quality of television rising and actors bouncing between TV and movies now, it’s tough to say who is an actual movie star. Willis was a guy who would do the big movies, but also take chances on interesting mid-budget work.

“The one thing I learned about him, too, while researching his career and going back over those films, is how often he found a script that he really loved or a director that he absolutely wanted to collaborate on and (would) use his star power to kind of work with those people, like when he went to work with M. Night Shyamalan on ‘Sixth Sense,’ M. Night was not M. Night at that point. He was still very young in his career. When he does ‘Pulp Fiction,’ Quentin Tarantino’s coming off of ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ He’s got some heat, but he’s not Quentin yet. And Bruce takes a chance on these guys.

“Then in the science fiction section, when I wrote about those, both Terry Gillian for ‘12 Monkeys’ and Luc Bresson for ‘Fifth Element’ say that they would not have been able to make the type of movie that they were able to make if not for Bruce stepping up for them (and) running studio interference because they had a movie star. That guaranteed a (good) opening weekend. And that kind of power doesn’t exist in the industry anymore. No other celebrity or actor is really able to push something through the pipeline the way that Bruce did.”

We’ll talk about ‘Die Hard,’ but I’m curious about his approach to other action movies. I’m sure they hire Bruce and want John McClane but how did he avoid playing the same character each time?

“I think that’s something that he wrestled with over the course of his career because that movie was so influential that it affected the entire genre. How many rip offs of ‘Die Hard’ do we have, and all these other action stars who then turned around and tried to become relatable? That gave birth to Keanu Reeves doing ‘Speed.’ ”

“I think it was difficult for Bruce to distance himself from that John McClane personality. Even in some of his biggest hits, like ‘Last Boy Scout,’ it’s still a variation of John McClane. It’s still someone who’s kind of an underdog, maybe a little down on their luck, trying to fight through impossible odds. And instead, what he ends up doing is that he takes McClane in the ‘Die Hard’ sequels and he changes him. And in my opinion, kind of got away from what made John McClane special by the end of the ‘Die Hard’ franchise.”

Looking at ‘Die Hard,’ what did you glean from viewing it with a more critical lens as you prepared to dissect his performance for the book? Did anything new stand out?

“It’s really funny. I have analyzed that movie straight up and down, because I view it as a perfect movie. And so for somebody who has spent a career studying film, you ask yourself, why? Why is this perfect? How come this works on every level? How come it makes you feel the way that you feel and it’s this marriage of script and performance and casting, like everything in it just clicks.

“It’s just one of those instances where all of the pieces snapped so snugly into place that by the time you get to the end, it’s a perfect vision of a film coming together. I think a lot of that is (Willis’) casting, like you could put anyone else in (the part of) John McClane, but it wouldn’t be the same movie. It wouldn’t be as successful. Bruce was exactly what that movie needed.”

I think the interesting thing about Willis, and this is highlighted through your book, but he was versatile. He could do a comedy and then turn around and be an action star. He could do a science fiction movie and then hold his own in a drama. He wasn’t specialized. Why can’t that happen anymore?

“I think a lot of that is just the industry not willing to take chances anymore, right? I don’t know if we’re going to get a Jim Carrey anymore or even an Adam Sandler. Someone who becomes the brand because the film industry doesn’t do that. Everything’s cyclical. We could very well go back to what we had in the ‘90s where people were sort of branching out and establishing themselves as leads. But currently, everything has to be a proven franchise, a safe brand they can roll out. It’s why this summer is nothing but sequels to things that we’re really familiar with. But I think that the industry can course correct, and probably will force correct and become a little bit more affordable because you’re almost starting to see it right now.”

Willis was always someone, especially in his peak years, who you could toss in a movie and expect him to make it a little bit better.

Even the movies that he took a swing at that missed (like) ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’ Films that, at least on paper, you understood what he was trying to do… Maybe it misses the mark a little bit, but he wasn’t a paycheck guy, which is what kind of blows my mind for those last three years in those movies (he made) down in Georgia that he was shooting only for paycheck roles, and I didn’t think he had to do that.

“So back in all my research like what led him to do those and even the diagnosis, the diagnosis tells us why he’s not good in them. It tells us why his performance is sort of degrading, but it didn’t really touch on what he needed to take those parts for. I don’t understand why somebody in his camp didn’t step forward and just say, ‘Hey, you don’t need to do (this).’ ”

You profiled so many of his movies, was there one that’s not in the book that you feel is underrated?

“‘The Kid.’ It was one of his only forays into doing family comedy. ‘Look Who’s Talking’ was huge for him in the early days but then after that, he really doesn’t do the family comedy bit. He doesn’t really play the dad in a movie like that, but in ‘The Kid,’ he does and it’s really sweet. It’s sweeter than I remember and he’s very funny in it, and kind of upbeat, and it made me wish he did a little bit more of that.”

“Bruce Willis: Celebrating the Cinematic Legacy of an Unbreakable Hollywood Icon” is available at local booksellers.

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