‘Die Hard’ crew feared Bruce Willis was dead after filming his first big scene
nypost.com“The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage” by Nick de Semlyen (Crown).“In the context of these ’roid-rage, superhuman heroes we had at the time, this character seemed like a pu–y.”The character in question, of course, was John McClane, who transformed Bruce Willis from a wise-cracking, Chandler Bing-esque TV banterer into an action movie legend with the 1988 now-classic.
Even though it almost killed him. In fact, a scene in which Willis shot through the air by an explosion was scheduled early in the shoot so that if something had gone wrong — which it nearly did — they’d have time to recast his role.Due to the film’s sarcastic humor and McClane starting the film as more of a loser than a hero, a slew of Hollywood’s A-list actors passed on the role, including Clint Eastwood — who didn’t get the character’s sense of humor — and Richard Gere, a Buddhist who was seeking more spiritual roles.
Burt Reynolds chose to shoot the television special “A Beverly Hills Christmas” with Jimmy Stewart and Lucille Ball instead.Other names rumored to have passed include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Bronson, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino and even 72-year-old Frank Sinatra, who supposedly had to be asked due to an odd contractual matter involving a previous film.
Willis, when first approached, passed on the movie due to his commitments to the TV hit “Moonlighting.” But that changed when his co-star, Cybill Shepherd, announced her pregnancy, providing Willis an unexpected 11-week hiatus.
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