大象传媒

Bruce Willis emerged from playing the wise cracking David Addison Jr in TV's Moonlighting to become one of the biggest movie stars of all-time. He's achieved enduring success by mixing blockbusters such as Die Hard, and Armageddon with more character-driven roles in edgier material such as Pulp Fiction, Twelve Monkeys and The Sixth Sense.

He tells 大象传媒 Movies why he felt the time was right to return to the Die Hard franchise for a fourth outing, and how they tried to learn from the mistakes of the previous sequels...

What makes Die Hard 4.0 different from the previous films?

When we started talking about the fourth film, we were able to go through the first three and identify the things we wanted, the values and the qualities, and the things that we didn't want. For most people, the first film has always been the best film - that was the high watermark of what all the Die Hards, and a lot of action movies, should be and aspire to. But you have to remember that the next two films were done when the sequel business was just starting out.

We were flailing wildly when we did the second film. One of the first things we said about Die Hard 4.0 was that we couldn't be self-referential to any of the other Die Hards or to any of the other action films that have come since Die Hard. [We felt] Die Hard 2 was really self-referential in an almost back-patting way. The third one, Die Hard With A Vengeance - or as I like to call it, "Thank God Sam Jackson and Jeremy Irons were in the film" - was again another Die Hard; it had John McClane and it had a lot of cool components, but in my mind I always had the idea to do another film, to take another shot at it, and try to get as close to the first film as possible.

What does Len Wiseman bring to the franchise?

I credit Len with bringing the Die Hard series into the 21st Century, and giving it a really smart, shiny, patina of technology. But, at the same time, he has the courage to do old-school stunts. It would have been really easy for us to do CGI stunts, and while we did have to use some CGI - you're not allowed to fly a jet down the streets of Washington DC - the stunts are real stunts. We flew a real car into a real helicopter and the car you seeing tumbling at Jason and I in the tunnel was a real car.

What sort of fitness regime did you take part in to prepare for the physical demands this time around?

I've done films where you have to get in shape for purely vanity reasons, when you read a script, turn to page 87 and it says: "Rips his shirt off and casually throws it onto chair" - you're going to go to the gym the next day because nobody wants to see your big fat ass out there taking your shirt off! But this particular film had a lot less to do with vanity and more to do with just keeping myself strong enough.

I started going to the gym three times a week and I thought that would be enough. That was when we were shooting in Baltimore. But when we got back to Los Angeles and started on the apartment scene, which involves me jumping up on refrigerators and diving onto the floor, I had to work out some more, so my bones wouldn't shatter on the concrete. I'm 52, I'm lazy, I hate working out, I only do it for films and I think of it as work.

How did it feel to get beaten up by a woman [Maggie Q] and how do you think audiences will react to it?

The stuff I do with Maggie is just bananas. First of all, I've never fought a woman in a film before. Second of all, I've never had my ass kicked by a woman in a film before. Third, I've never hit a woman in real life - never have, never will - so it was a peculiar thing. But Maggie made it believable, so people will see John McClane getting his ass kicked. It's an odd thing to see how audiences will react - especially in the States - to John McClane getting his ass kicked in order for hackboy [Justin Long] to do what he has to do to save the world.

There's a lot less swearing in this one, is that deliberate?

When I did the first Die Hard it was because Cybil Shepherd got pregnant, so I had an extended break from Moonlighting. When you do TV, you can't cuss at all, so all of a sudden I'm able to do this unbridled cussing. I wish that someone had said "maybe we should do one without you saying f*** a thousand times." But we live in very parochial times right now.

Len and I never thought about not doing a hardcore R-rated Die Hard film, which eventually will be seen. It's just the one that's out now has less swearing. That's the rules we have to live by. If that's your criteria of what you need for the film [swearing], there are tonnes of films out there that curse left and right, with no meaning. There was a certain point in the first film where my cussing didn't have any meaning anymore because I did it so much.

What about the issue of terrorism? Did you have to be careful, given the changed state of the world since the first three films?

You're absolutely right, in the first three films we had terrorism everywhere but that was all pre-9/11. After 9/11 a lot of action movies that dealt with terrorism got put on the shelf. Die Hard 4.0 was probably one of them. So, it was our task in doing another film and still talking about terrorists, not to dishonour the people who lost their lives on 9/11. It was as simple as that and I think we did that. I think it was a unique spin to turn it around and have the United States attacked from the inside by someone who knew the system so well, they were able to really go at it and take it down.

John McClane is an old school cop in the digital age. How computer savvy are you in real-life?

Medium. I know how to turn it on. I know where the disc goes: in that little slot but I can't always get it out. And I have three genius-level computer savvy kids who save my ass all the time. I'll tell you what I don't do. I don't watch the news on TV anymore. I get my news online. And like all of you, I Google whoever I want.

Die Hard 4.0 opens in UK cinemas on Wednesday 4th July 2007.