It's also hard to see the heros from one's youth go through health stuggles, decline physically, or pass away, because it reminds you of the transient nature of life and one's own mortality. I still think of him as John McClaine, yelling "Yippee Ki Yay, Mr. Falcon" because I wasn't old enough to watch R-Rated movies and had to depend on edited broadcast viewings.

It's sad and I wish him and his family the best.

I don’t see a need for updates that are “yep, he’s still alive.”

Well, it's not just an interview.There's a new t v special out.

the special actually made me tear a little bit. i love him so much.

Randomly off topic but I saw this youtube video recently on how Quentin Tarantino got Bruce Willis to be in Pulp Fiction. Damn this a great story.

It’s interesting, for a director like Tarantino, who’s so loyal to actors, to say he wrote a part specifically for Matt Dillon and then all these years later, Dillon still hasn’t been in a Tarantino movie.

That's great! Thanks for sharing it.

Willis: "The shortest line in the Bible is 'Jesus wept.' The shortest line in Hollywood is 'I'm in.'"
Great line.

Putting one's ego aside for the greater good of a movie. Shrewdness combined with smartness combined with luck. It all fell into place.

How many potentially good movies were ruined when someone was so desperate to put a star into it and compromised on his casting choices and the movies fell into obscurity? I wonder if anyone's ever charted that.

I thought it would be fun to share a fun memory of Willis instead of the thread being Doom and gloom revolving around his pending demise.

around his impending demise? that's what you thought was not doom and gloom?

I have the utmost respect for Willis. Sure he's a Hollywood icon, but when he started accepting job after job of every two bit, low budget, VOD movie after movie I remember thinking, WTF is this dude doing. ultimately he was doing everything he could with his dwindling time to set up his family for life. He knew it. We didn't. Hats off, man.

I'm not sure about that. He started making those trash movies 15 years ago, while he was still an active movie star in movies like RED, Die Hard 5, Looper or Sin City 2. I don't know if he was declining back then and already started to make quick paydays to set up his family, but I think at that point he was just phoning it in like John Travolta, Sylvester Stallone or Robert DeNiro are doing on a regular basis.

I think it was probably a little of both. Supposedly, Tears of the Sun was the movie he suffered his head injury on. Some of his family/friends suspect that was the start of his decline. I think he started taking smaller roles after that. Yes, he did Die Hard 5 but I always thought it was odd that John McClane was basically a supporting character to his son in that movie. Now it makes sense as to why.

I think the only real question is who was the one making those film choices for him at the end. If he knew his time was limited and made the choice himself, more power to him. If he didn’t know what was going on and his family kept putting him in front of the the camera to stockpile as much money as possible while he was still able to make money, then I have an issue with it.

Even Stallone has been taking a lot of those crap low budget DTV jobs in recent years. It could be a number of reasons, financial or just the declining popularity of a once big 80s/90s movie stars.

I’m not at all saying Eric Roberts is in the same league as Willis, Stallone, Travolta … but he’s stated in interviews that he just likes to work regardless of the role.
I guess the world needs ditchdiggers and DTV stars.

I'd argue that Red, Die Hard 5, Looper and Sin City2 still hold bigger cache as opposed to later epics like The Detective Knight trilogy, American Siege, Apex, Survive the Night, Trauma Center, and Cosmic Sin.

I think you misunderstood. Red, Die Hard, Looper and Sin City 2 were the big movies he was still doing, while he was also starting do star in the direct-to-video movies. Between RED, Looper and A Good Day To Die Hard, he was in Set Up, Catch .44 and Fire With Fire. Those weren't trash yet, but he had supporting roles in B-movies.
After Die Hard 5, G.I. Joe 2, and RED 2 and Sin City 2 he really got into the trash movie game and starred in 9 geaser teasers in 4 years. Once Upon a Time in Venice and Death Wish were the only starring roles in movies with higher production values, aside from some cameos. Glass and the supporting role in Motherless Brooklyn in 2019 is, in my opinion, the end of his movie career. While Once Upon a Time in Venice was the last movie with the classic Bruce Willis, he seemed pretty dull in Death Wish and in Glass even the as a viewer something felt off in his performance.
The following 26 movies in just 4 years is the time I would consider as the years he knew he couldn't do a proper movie anymore.