Bruce Willis, who is retiring from acting due to cognitive difficulties caused by aphasia, alarmed film staff two years ago when he misfired a gun loaded with a blank cartridge – and last year he asked in amazement what a report said he was doing on a make film set.
The 67-year-old Die Hard star, whose family announced on Wednesday that he had been diagnosed with a brain disorder, had shown signs of decline on set in recent years, nearly two dozen sources concerned for his well-being said were, opposite Los Angeles times.
The “Pulp Fiction” star – who was often paid $2 million for two days’ work – struggled with an inability to remember his lines and was fed his words through an earpiece known in the industry as a “catchy tune.” is, multiple sources told the newspaper.
A body double was used in most of the action scenes, particularly those involving the use of props, the LA Times reported.
Bruce Willis retires from acting in the face of cognitive difficulties caused by aphasia. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Bruce Willis misfired a blank loaded gun on a movie set two years ago.SplashNews.com
On the set of “Hard Kill” in Cincinnati two years ago, Willis allegedly fired a gun at the wrong cue, according to the outlet, which quotes two people familiar with the incident.
No one was injured and the film’s producer denied the incident took place, but the cast and crew members were alarmed by the alleged discharge from the gun, according to the report.
Another gun incident occurred on the set of “Hard Kill” in 2020, when actress Lala Kent, who plays Willis’ daughter, was tasked by his character to protect him from bad guys.
Bruce Willis had shown signs of decline on set in recent years. TheImageDirect.com
“I’m supposed to think my life is ending and then my dad steps in to save the day,” Kent told the newspaper.
Willis was supposed to deliver a line that acted as a cue to crouch before firing a gun – but he discharged the firearm without saying the line, according to the report.
“Because my back was turned to him, I wasn’t aware of what was happening behind me. But the first time it was like, ‘No big deal, let’s reset,'” Kent told the newspaper.
Rumer Willis, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Scout Willis, Emma Heming Willis and Tallulah Willis attend Demi Moore’s ‘Inside Out’ Book Party on September 23, 2019. Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for goop
She said that although she asked director Matt Eskandari to remind Willis to say his line before firing again in the next shot, the same thing happened.
Eskandari did not respond to calls from the newspaper seeking comment, but another staff member said he recalled Kent being rocked and a third crew member said he recalled an incident where Willis “opened the gun fired off the wrong line”.
The crew member told the newspaper: “We have always made sure that nobody is in the line of fire when handling weapons.”
Bruce Willis runs with an automatic weapon in a scene from the movie Die Hard, 1988.20th Century-Fox/Getty Images
The film’s gunsmith denied that the incident took place, and Randall Emmett — Kent’s former fiancé and co-founder of Emmett/Furla Oasis, who worked on 20 Willis films — also denied that Willis fired a gun prematurely.
“I fully support Bruce and his family at this challenging time and admire his courage in battling this difficult condition. Bruce will always be a part of our family,” Emmett told the newspaper.
Mike Burns, who directed Willis in last year’s action thriller Out of Death, sent the film’s screenwriter an alarming email in June 2020, in which he wrote: “It looks like we need to turn Bruce’s page number reduce about 5 pages,” the Los Das reports the Angeles Times.
Bruce Willis was often paid $2 million for two days’ work.©20th Century Fox
Bruce Willis’ ex-wife Demi Moore posted a photo with the actor less than two weeks before the announcement.Instagram/Demi Moore
“We also need to trim his dialogue down a bit so there’s no monologues etc.,” he added, according to the newspaper, which spoke to nearly two dozen people who had expressed concerns about Willis’s well-being.
But Burns said he was unaware of the seriousness of Willis’ mental condition until the actor showed up on the set of the film, which was one of 22 films the actor had churned out in four years.
“After the first day of working with Bruce, I got to see it firsthand and realized there was a bigger issue at stake here and why I had been asked to cut his lines,” Burns told the LA Times.
The director said he was forced to cut all of Willis’s scenes – about 25 pages of dialogue – into a single day of shooting.
Bruce Willis will retire from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate.William Volcov/Brazil Photo Press/SplashNews.
Burns said he finally decided to stop doing Willis films after his experience on the set of Wrong Place last year.
Before filming, he reportedly asked one of Willis’s co-workers how the actor was and was told he was “a lot better than last year.”
“I took him at his word,” Burns told the newspaper, referring to the employee.
Bruce Willis was amazed to ask what he was doing on a movie set last year.©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett C
But he said he soon realized Willis “was worse.”
“After we were done, I said, ‘I’m done. I will not do any other Bruce Willis films.’ I’m relieved he’s taking some time off,” Burns said.
Another startling episode occurred on the set of the low-budget flick White Elephant, whose director Jesse Johnson said, “It was clear he wasn’t the Bruce I remembered,” the newspaper reported.
Bruce Willis and Emma Heming Willis attend the premiere of Motherless Brooklyn during the 57th New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, October 11, 2019. © Lev Radin/Pacific Press via ZUMA Wire
When he asked the actor’s crew about his condition, “they said he was happy to be there but that it would be best if we could finish filming by lunchtime and let him go earlier,” Johnson said Newspaper.
Two crew members reportedly said Willis asked, “I know why you’re here and I know why you’re here, but why am I here?”
One of the sources said, “It wasn’t so much annoying as more like, ‘How do we not make Bruce look bad?’ Someone would hand him a line and he didn’t understand what it meant. He was just being screwed.”
Stuart Wilson, Bruce Willis’ longtime stunt double, described the actor’s changes in an interview with The US Sun.Bobby Bank/WireImage
A representative for Willis declined to comment to the LA Times.
Meanwhile, Willis’ longtime stunt double Stuart Wilson detailed the actor’s changes in an interview with The US Sun.
“We’d seen some changes, but with bigger celebrities who are really, really popular, like Bruce, they often have a million different things in front of them,” Stuart told the outlet.
Bruce Willis and Emma Heming Willis celebrate their birthday with Demi Moore and Rumer Willis.Instagram
“Sometimes he just seemed distracted when you talked to him and we didn’t think it meant anything but you wondered if there were other things going on,” said the stuntman, who worked with Willis for 17 years.
“Obviously we knew that at a certain point other things were going on. We noticed because he gets tested for different things, but at the time we didn’t know exactly what it was,” Wilson added.
He said he noticed slight changes in Willis’ appearance when he saw him two weeks ago.
“He’s just a little slimmer now, but he was never a big eater anyway. You know, when we go out to dinner, he tells you to know quite a lot of stuff and he just hacks away,” Wilson said.
Stuart F. Wilson, Bruce Willis’ stunt double, noted that using an earphone for wire feeds was not uncommon.Bobby Bank/WireImage
“So he’s a bit slimmer. When I saw him a few weeks ago he was just a little slimmer than normal but not emaciated and he’s always been in pretty good shape,” he added.
The stunt double also noted that using an earphone to feed leads isn’t that uncommon.
“He played ‘Misery’ on Broadway, a guy named Adam, who’s an actor and also does a catchy tune,” he told The US Sun. “Occasionally he would use a catchy tune just to help out, especially when it was very conversational and we just flew in.
“He has all these things to do. And he just came out of another movie. So we often use catchy stuff just to make production easier,” he said.