1. On his affinity for playing police officers:
Bruce Willis: “It’s because partly because I’m from South Jersey and I have a strong affinity towards working class people. I believe that any job that requires you to possibly get shot at or get shot dead—you should be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for. These guys don’t get paid anything. Yet they go out there and do it, and there’s not a lot of them out there, and they are the last line between us and the wolves and the chaos that’s out in the world. There’s a lot of chaos in the world. All these guys—cops, EMT workers, men and women, emergency room doctors and nurses and people that every night have to see horrific things—there should be thousands of films done about these guys. And they should get paid more money. A lot more money, I think.”
2. On working with rapper and actor Mos Def:
“No one knew what he was going to do. All we knew was that we were fortunate enough to get him. And he showed up with a character that was just genius. That’s not him. He doesn’t talk like that. He doesn’t act like that. He’s a very smart creative young man. And it changed the fabric of the film. And it changed the way we all looked at the film. There is sort of a spontaneous chemistry happening in this film that I’m not sure would have happened had it been another actor. I was asked yesterday: how do you feel working with a rapper turned actor. I don’t think about him in that way at all. I think that he is an actor, and if he wants to do poetry, then he can do that. If he wants to rap, then he can do that. But he is an actor and he’s a very creative guy. And everybody benefited from his performance in this film. Especially me.”
3. On recruiting Mos Deffor 16 Blocks:
“We were friends. I’ve known him for a while, and I first saw him in Monster’s Ball, very different from this. I said, ‘Man, you’re awesome, just a tremendous actor.’ He said, ‘I’m doing this play Top Dog/Underdog in New York, and if you come through there , come see the show’ which I did, and we started hanging out. When we were going through the casting process I said ‘I know this guy’ and they said he passed. So I said, ‘Why don’t I make a call?’ I called him up and he was in Florida getting ready to do an album and I said, ‘You should take a look at this, it’s a terrific, really good part. And I think this is a career-making role for him. I think people are going to see him in a much different way. I love him and he’s just like a little angel and in real life too. But in this movie he really has an angelic quality which just comes out of him. He’s not acting that, it’s just Mos.”
4. On the violence that appears in many of his films:
“I’m not a violent man or advocate violence…Look, we live in a violent world, man. This country was founded on violence. Who’s kidding who? We came here and said to the native American Indians ‘Okay, we got some bad news, we got some pretty bad news, and we got some really bad news. The bad news is we’re here. The pretty bad news is we’re not leaving. The really bad news is we’re going to take all your land, every tiny little bit of land that you guys have, and put you on this little postage stamp of desert where you can’t grow a thing, unless of course we find oil on that land. Then we’ll move you to another little postage-stamp place in Arizona, and we’re going to fuck you over and give you blankets filled with smallpox.’ And if that’s not violence, then what is, my man?”
5. On pushing his limits as an actor as he ages:
“I don’t think I could’ve played Jack Mosely ten years ago. I knew when I was in my thirties that by the time I got into my forties and late forties that I would grow into, that I would know so much more about life and have lived more life. It just allowed me to give this character a different worldview than I had when I was in my thirties. And there are just such better parts now. There’s just so much cooler things to be able to do. You’ve all seen it, you’ve all read it, you’ve all seen the little things trying to make you feel less of a man because you’re losing your hair, but they can all suck my… You know what I mean? I’m a man, and I will kick anybody’s ass who tries to tell me that I’m not a man because my hair’s thinning. And I like fooling around with looking different ways. I mean, look, I wear makeup in films. I don’t wear makeup in real life. It’s just part of the gig, that’s all. You wear clothes and you gain weight and you lose weight.”
6. On deglamorizing his own image to get the physical traits of this character:
“They’re all elements in the script. It never said that I had to be overweight, but I’ve known guys who are capable of drinking a bottle and a half of Scotch a night—and they’re a little overweight. I think they call it booze weight. So I thought it would help. But everything else—the limp and the attitude and how beat up he is—were all written by Richard Wenk, the screenwriter. But that said, it could have just been another stupid run-down-the-street–or limp-down-the street–Bruce Willis film. This film didn’t really come together till Mos Def showed up with the character.”
7. On the theme of corruption that drives the plot of 16 Blocks:
“The thing that I like about this film is the story is kind of a microcosmic view of what’s going on in the world, the chaos in the world. I personally feel that the world is out of control and we can’t effect the politicians, we can’t get the lobbyists out of Washington, we can’t connect with our senators and congressmen who don’t give sh*t about us. They’re just up there. It just seems that their job is to do nothing, is to give the appearance of them doing something but they’re not doing anything. And money corrupts. It’s all about money and everybody needs money. If cops were paid $150,000 a year, instead of 40, to get shot at every night and have five kids that you’ve got to put through school–not going to happen. And as a man, in this modern world, we’re still the hunter-gatherers, we have to protect our family and we protect the cave, you want a house where your kids are safe and you’re going to do whatever that takes. And sometimes it takes breaking the law and becoming corrupt. Money does corrupt.
8. On viewing the aftermath of a shootout while on a research ride-along with a real police detective.
“It was definitely disturbing. Nobody likes to see that. But it goes on every night and maybe one or two things are reported, but we kind of go for the sensational now in the news. I don’t watch the news. I’ve turned it off and I feel so much better for it, which is why I have that youthful glow about me. But I wanted to get out there, I wanted to get out there on that shift that those guys work. I haven’t done it for a while. They’re dealing with things that nobody in this room or city wants to deal with, and they’ve been dealing with it for less than 50 grand a year and after taxes how much is that–35, maybe? You can’t feed your family on that. Schoolteachers, too, while we’re talking about being political: 100 grand, let’s throw money at them and in ten years we’d have a much smarter group of kids coming out of the schools, because you’d get great teachers. Great teachers can’t work as teachers now because they can’t afford to raise kids on 35-40 grand a year. So let’s throw some money at the problem. Let’s not build one more rocket, one bomb less, and you can solve a lot of problems.”
9. On the redemptive themes of 16 Blocks:
“Films that have the theme of redemption in them are really morality plays, and these stories have been around since the Greeks were doing it in the amphitheater. And it makes people feel good and it gives people hope, because if you went to see 16 Blocks and David Morse’s character got away and got away with it and killed Mos Def and killed me, you’d say, ‘Don’t go see this film, it’s so depressing.’ You won’t go see it. We hold out hope with this film and that’s what people want. This film is a microcosm of the chaos that exists in the world. All you’ve got to do is turn on the news to get depressed. Watch the news for five minutes and you’re going, ‘Oh my God, the world is falling to pieces.’ And it may be, but there are some good things happening out there. I like films that deal with that theme.”
10. On the varying genres that fit into the category of “Bruce Willis films”:
“I’ve done different kinds of films, but not all of them get seen. In the last two years I’ve done a different bunch of films that all seem to be coming out within five months of each other and they’re very different. Lucky Number Slevin is a really great movie. Wait till you see Alpha Dog: Crazy–really represents what’s happening in the Valley in California, these kids are getting high all day long. No Sin City 2, talking about a prequel. 16 Blocks coming out, and I did Over the Hedge that is really funny. It has jokes for kids in there, but also a lot of jokes for adults. They’re all different. But I don’t have a plan to say I want to do THIS film because I want to make THIS statement. I think my job is to be entertaining. If you’re going to come out of your house, park your car, buy food and popcorn and sit in a movie theatre, instead of sitting in front of that big flat screen where you can just watch the DVD, it’s our job to be entertaining but I never gave any thought to I wanted messages for this film. I think messages are for documentaries.”
11. On the biggest force of change in his life:
“Having three kids changed me. Here’s how it helped me change. Before I had kids, I was just thinking abut myself. I was just all me, my world. When I had my first daughter, Rumer, who’s now a young woman, it was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s unbelievable the change that came over me. Everything else seems stupid once you have kids. Everything else you worry about, ‘Oh, how am I going to get this? How am I going to get that? I want this, I want that.’ Then you have this little baby, this little tiny infant that needs your help, you just go, ‘Oh, who cares about everything else.’ I really lean into being a dad. I like being a dad. I know there are a lot of men out there who don’t take care of the babies that they bring into the world, and that is a horrible situation. I can’t imagine. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why that happens. But it does.”
12. On correcting the fallacy that he is a card-carrying Republican:
“I’m a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion, I want them to stop pissing on my money and your money, the tax dollars that we give 50 per cent of, or 40 per cent of, every year, and I want them to be fiscally responsible, and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I’ll say I’m a Republican. But other than that, I want the government to take care of people who need help, like the kids in foster care, the half a million kids who are in orphanages right now–they call them foster homes, but they’re orphanages. I want them to take care of the elderly and give them free medicine, give them whatever they need. There’s tons, billions and billions of dollars that are just being wasted. Okay? I hate government. I’m apolitical. Write that down: I’m not a Republican.”
13. On the current state of Hollywood filmmaking:
“Hollywood’s changed a great deal since 9/11. It’s a much more cautious time in Hollywood now, and it’ll come back. It’ll change. When five different films of different genres come out and make $150 million each or $200 million each, it’ll go back. They’ll start spending money again. But it really is a cautious period of austerity in Hollywood…It’s all a crap shoot. In this film, if we hadn’t gotten Mos Def, if we hadn’t had a great script, if we hadn’t had Richard Donner, this could’ve been another film that came and went and became a little round disc, a little piece of software, and that’s really where it’s going. It’s almost like the movie is the commercial for the DVD sale because that’s what they want. Because let me tell you something, Jack: that little round disc is going to be around forever. People have collections of those now, and when one of them wears out, they’ll go out and get it again. I watch films all the time. I still watch them, and I watch films over and over and over. I watch Goodfellas once a week on DVD. I watch Dr. Strangelove four or five times a year. I watch old movies and new movies and that’s how people are seeing it now. I can’t go out and see Dr. Strangelove in any movie theater. In New York, they used to have great revival houses. They don’t have that now, so you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to watch them on DVDs.”
14. On the sequel he’d like to make:
“I would like to see Die Hard 4 happen. If it happens, if they get the script right, yeah, I’d consider it.”
15. On the possibility of his TV breakthrough Moonlighting becoming a movie:
“It should be. They gotta get a young guy to play it.”
16. On whether he would ever write his memoirs:
“No. Too many people would get hurt, because I’d have to tell the truth. It’d be a great book. Let me tell you, it’s like Harry Truman said, ‘The only thing new under the sun is the truth you don’t know.’ And they never got it right anyway. All the sh*t that you read in the tabloids…they lie about people and they just make up shit all week long. And you have to sue ‘em to get it changed. This is the world we live in. That is approved and that is okay and people go, ‘Ooh, ooh, somebody’s boning this person over here or something, somebody did this over there,’ and they’re all lies and nobody’s yelling at them…They can hate me. I don’t care. Whatever. They can do whatever they want. I’m still here after 22 years.”
