The ailing health of Bruce Willis, who ended his acting career due to speech and cognitive impairments, has become a concern for several filmmakers who have worked with him recently.
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The family of the ‘Die Hard’ star and other famous action movies announced on Wednesday that Bruce Willis, 67, has aphasia, a condition that prevents normal communication and “impairs his cognitive abilities.”
Several film professionals interviewed by the Los Angeles Times newspaper said they noticed the actor’s waning skills after recently working with him.
In particular, they cite moments when Bruce Willis seemed disoriented and struggled to remember his lines of dialogue, even as his entourage asked that his lyrics be reduced to the maximum for his performances.
Director Mike Burns, who directed Race Against Death, which will be released in 2021, said he quickly realized the artist had health concerns.
“After my first day working with Bruce, I could personally see that there was a big problem and I understood why I had been asked to shorten his text,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
Fellow White Elephant director Jesse Johnson had found Bruce Willis for this low-budget film several decades after meeting the actor.
And he found him very changed. “It was obvious that this wasn’t the Bruce I remembered,” he said.
According to film crew members quoted by the California daily, Bruce Willis is said to have started on set at some point: “I know why you’re here and I know why you’re here, but what am I doing here?”
“After our experience with White Elephant, it was decided that we would no longer work together,” added Jesse Johnson, who had been approached for another film project with Bruce Willis.
“We’re all Bruce Willis fans and it didn’t seem right. At the end of the day, it was a sad end to an incredible career and it made us all uncomfortable,” he said.
His star had faded lately, but Bruce Willis was one of the hottest action film actors of the 1990s and 2000s, known around the world.
With a declining career, in recent years he had multiplied appearances in series B films, where he held roles as brief as they were cartoonish.
The organizers of the Razzies, anti-Oscars that parody the Hollywood awards by pinning down the worst films of the year, had given it a separate category this year.
They announced on Thursday that they are withdrawing this “award” after the actor became ill with aphasia.