Bruce Willis takes forced retirement. His family recently announced this news for him via social media. For health reasons, the actor has to retire from the film world. Various colleagues now report that his aphasia has been causing him difficulties at work for a long time.
Concerns about Bruce Willis grew
For a report by the Los Angeles Times, more than 20 people who have worked with the action star over the past few years were interviewed. They are said to have all said they were worried about the actor’s condition. Bruce Willis suffers from aphasia, which causes damage to the language center in the brain. This can cause problems with speaking, reading and understanding.
In the past four years, Willis has worked on 22 productions and despite his poor condition, he was very popular with filmmakers, although it has mostly been “Straight to Homevideo” productions that the one-time superstar has been involved in over the past ten years.
However, many of his colleagues are said to have wondered during filming whether Willis was still aware of his surroundings on set. This is how directors described situations in which the “Die Hard” star was unable to remember his lines. As a result, his scenes were shortened, the dialogue simplified and his shooting days reduced to two days with no more than eight hours of work, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Bruce Willis’ career was kept alive with tricks
Since his illness continued to cause difficulties for the 67-year-old, despite the team’s cooperation, further tricks were used: the actor Huel Potter was given the task of speaking his text to Willis using an earphone. Stephen J. Eads was also used as an assistant to keep an eye on Bruce Willis throughout the shoot. The biggest concession, however, was that most of the action scenes were no longer played by the actor himself, but by a double. These were mainly those in which shots were fired.
He fired loaded guns at the wrong time
During the filming of the 2020 film Hard Kill, the retired actor reportedly fired a blank-loaded gun at the wrong time, according to two people on the set. Among them was Lala Kent, who played the role of Eva Chalmers, mimicking Willis’ daughter in the film. She says the actor even pulled the trigger at the wrong time for two consecutive takes. Kent explains: “Because my back was to him, I didn’t realize what was happening behind me. But the first time it was like, ‘No big deal, let’s do it all over again.’”
There are disagreements regarding the second situation: Kent claims that Willis, despite being asked to say his sentence beforehand, fired the gun too early. This is denied by her ex-fiancé director Randall Emmett. Director Matt Eskandari has not commented on this, but another crew member wants to testify that Bruce Willis fired the gun based on the wrong text. As a security measure, according to a colleague, it was always ensured “that nobody was in the line of fire when handling weapons.”
“Not the one I remember”
Another director, Jesse V. Johnson, reports on his experiences with the ailing actor: Since the two of them knew each other from previous projects together, Johnson can say with certainty “that this was no longer the Bruce Willis that I remember .” For the production of “White Elephant,” he rushed filming because he was aware that Willis was not doing well. The question ran through the work: “How do we make sure that Bruce doesn’t look stupid?”, according to a crew member. He was “told lines of text, but he didn’t understand what it meant”.
Relief at withdrawal: “No more movies with Bruce”
Johnson and his team agreed that they “didn’t want to make another film with Bruce Willis.” Johnson regrets the move: “We’re all Bruce Willis fans and the decision felt wrong and ultimately was a pretty sad ending to an incredible career that none of us felt comfortable with.”
“Out of Death” director Mike Burns, who recently worked with Willis on “The Wrong Place,” was even reassured by the actor’s resignation. He would have noticed that his health had deteriorated in the year between filming The Wrong Place and Out of Death. At the end of the shoot he would have thought: “I’m done. I won’t be doing any more Bruce Willis movies” and was relieved “that he’s taking some time off.”
Numerous stars had reacted to the cult actor’s career on Wednesday. Among them were many acting colleagues who expressed their sympathy and solidarity with him and his family. But they also honored Willis’ work and thanked him for the good times we had with him. On April 1, the stations ProSieben and Kabel Eins also honored the actor and changed their program: Bruce Willis films will be shown from 8:15 p.m. until late at night.
+++ This article first appeared on rollingstone.de +++