The press conference has
barely begun when the idea to punch Bruce Willis pops fully-formed into my
head.
It’s one of the hottest days
of the year and I’m lightly broiling on a boat on the Thames with about 50
other writers and media whores, attending the press junket for his new
action/comedy RED 2. I’m secretly
hoping Willis will make an entrance by abseiling onto the boat from Hungerford
Bridge and crashing through the window, after all they shouldn’t have put him
on the water if they didn’t want him to make waves. I know it’s highly unlikely though and console myself with a
beer and a brownie.
Dame Helen Mirren and Weeds
star Mary-Louise Parker are already in attendance, Dame Helen working the
assembled hacks like a pro, killing time while we wait for Brucie to make his
entrance by kicking off a debate about the impending birth of the Royal
Baby.
The Royal Waters had broken
that morning and, right up until that moment, Bateaux London’s Symphony
riverboat had been a sweaty little oasis of sanity away from the Kay Burley-led
hysteria that gripped the UK’s media.
“We need more Queens!” the
Dame opines before inviting suggestions for names. There’s a few Victorias and Dianas but disappointingly no
one suggests “Helen!” The general
consensus is that it’ll be a girl.
And human, as opposed to some Lovecraftian nightmare. Later that day the baby is revealed to
be a boy. Which still doesn’t
preclude him from making a very fine queen one day.
About 4 minutes after Mirren
and Parker arrive, “the legend that is Bruce Willis” swaggers in to
enthusiastic applause and whooping, trademark wry smirk firmly in place, and
our host kicks things off by asking Mary-Louise Parker, bizarrely, if she
actually drove the 2CV her character commandeers in one of the film’s lengthy
chase scenes.
“I’m a horrible driver and I
don’t drive at all really. Ever.”
says Parker.
“And the one scene where they let me drive or asked me to drive, I drove
straight into a wall.
“And the director put it on a loop and watched it over and over
again. So no, they don’t trust me
to even pull out of a parking spot.”
It’s around the time our
host insists on showing off his schoolboy French by pronouncing 2CV “deux chevaux” and sharing with us his knowledge of the peculiarities
of the Citroen’s gear shift that I start thinking about decking Hollywood
royalty.
Parker has nothing but love
for Willis though.
“I love doing any scenes with
him so, um, that’s, you know, the best part of the movie,” she says. “But my character’s sorta helpless at
action, she’s not really…she sorta fails miserably at it.
“And it was fun to be bad at it, that was the fun part.”
The desire to punch Willis
bubbles to the surface of my brain unbidden and ricochets around inside my
skull, gathering speed, momentum.
The schoolboy French is
being deployed again, this time directed at Helen Mirren whose character
infiltrates a psychiatric ward by masquerading as the Virgin Queen, Dame Helen
being asked if it’s now “de rigueur” for her to have a regal moment in every
film?
“I can’t remember how that
came about actually,” says Mirren.
“I think the writers had written, they thought it was very funny of
course, that I would pretend to be the Queen.
“I think that I suggested it should be Elizabeth the First, who I have
played, and I thought that would be a funnier take than being the present
queen. So, um, one forgets how
these things come about, but certainly the writers thought it would be hysterical
to see me play the Queen.”
It’s not that I want to punch Bruce Willis! God, no. It’s
just that…he’s Bruce Freaking Willis!
And he looks pretty damn good for a 58-year-old!
“Vanity plays a big part in my
staying in shape,” says Willis. “I
have to think about the food that I eat.
And I also have to think about lifting and moving around…ah, the
weights. Barbells. Things like that.”
He’s got 20 years on me and
he’s in better shape than I’ve ever been but still…he’s only sitting about 30
feet away! Once I get up and move
into the aisle, I’ll have a clear run.
8, maybe 9, steps and a lunge is all it would take.
“I don’t do that many stunts,”
Willis shares. “I would do the
stunts if I could. But I’m not
allowed to ever, EVER…be hurt.”
Let’s face it; this is the
only chance I’m ever liable to get to take down one of the biggest action stars
in the world! Who wouldn’t think
about it, fantasise about it?
“This movie has expanded
from the first,” says Mirren.
“They go to incredible locations, that they didn’t write me into, like
Paris.”
She continues: “The film is
bigger in a sense and I think you always learn, that’s the great advantage of
coming to do a second one, you can learn from the first and what was so
wonderful about the first was these wonderful, fully realised quirky characters
and the comedy and the romance and the action.
“And that’s a very difficult
balance - to make a film that has genuine love/romance in it, that has great
comedy and has a lot of action in it.
And that’s the ball we try to keep in the air all the time through this
movie.
“But at the same time,
playing it with great seriousness, if you like. It’s not tongue-in-cheek. All of these characters are very serious about who they are
and what they do. I think it’s
just faster and funnier and a little more furious than the first one.”
Willis obviously
agrees.
“When we did the first film
it was very ambitious; it’s not often that they try to make a film that has
romance, action and comedy all in the same film.
“I always thought that one
part of it was gonna be kicked out but it stayed in and it all stayed in. So this time the writers have just
added more romance, more action, more comedy.”
Who am I kidding? I’m not going to punch Bruce
Willis. I love Bruce Willis. Always have. Not that keen on his politics - he banged the drum for
Dubya, for God’s sake! - but he’s rarely made a film I haven’t enjoyed. ‘Cept maybe Cop Out. No one liked Cop Out.
And he obviously had a ball
reuniting with the cast of the first RED.
“When we all got back together,”
says Willis. “I think it was just
about two years in between or a year and a half in between, but when we started
back to work, it was as if we had just seen each other the day before. Everybody was already in character and
showed up ready to work.
“I like to work in ensemble
casts, I like to work with this group of actors especially. I think we were very fortunate to get
Tony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Byung-hun Lee and the cast we did the
first film with.
“All we try to do, all day long,
is just make each other laugh and hopefully that gets on the screen and you’ll
find something funny as well. I
like working with all these actors, I’m a big fan of Sir Anthony Hopkins.”
The problem with press
junkets are that no one wants to ask anything controversial, no one wants to
ask anything that’s going to rock the boat. We all want to be asked back so no one’s willing to stick
their neck out and ask anything interesting. No one asks Mary-Louise Parker about her recent statements
about her intentions to quit acting because the Internet’s nasty, instead
someone asks if she likes the coat she got to wear in Paris. No one dares ask Willis about that
appearance on The One Show, even if it’s on all of our minds, though he is
asked about his singing career and if he has plans to revive it or to take on a
musical role?
“Fortunately not,” says
Willis. “I don’t…I shout in
key. There are a lot of really
good singers in the world and I’m really happy to let them handle all the heavy
lifting.
“I just can’t stand to hear the sound of my own voice when I sing. It really is…excruciating.”
Which is refreshing coming from a man who would’ve had a UK Number One
but for the Pet Shop Boys. So
we’re not going to see a Jean Valjean, a Sweeney Todd or even a Captain Von
Trapp any time soon from Willis.
But after a quarter of a century as Hollywood’s premier action hero, his
performance in RED 2 is still fresh, still fun.
“Well, I try not to take it very
seriously,” says Willis. “It’s
just a difficult thing if you take yourself seriously or if you take the film
seriously. All I’m ever just
trying to be is entertaining and the action sequences and things like that are
just part of a certain kind of entertainment, not my favourite.
“I like to try to make people
laugh more than I like to fight in films.”
Notorious for not enjoying
doing press, the boat is easing towards the dock when Willis makes his feelings
plain.
“My favourite part of making
films is the actual day-to-day process of getting in front of the camera and
trying to make it seem lifelike, trying to make it funny, trying to make it
romantic and all this (the press & publicity) is, I know, a good part of films. It’s the sales, the explanation of how
we made the movie or how we didn’t, but my favourite part is actually making
the movie and going to work every day.”
And with that, the boat
docks and he’s gone, the wry smirk playing across his face, and as the
assembled press pack scurry to retrieve their recording devices, I idly wonder
if I have time to blag another beer before going ashore.
David Watson
Exclusive to this blog as no one wanted to take the chance on publishing a piece where I fantasise about punching the biggest action star on the planet
