Let’s take a trip back to the late '80s when the original Die Hard was about to hit theaters. Bruce Willis, already riding high from his hit TV series Moonlighting, where he famously shared the screen with Cybill Shepherd, wasn’t exactly shy about his confidence. And why should he be? Moonlighting had taken the world by storm, even if its popularity was starting to wane at that moment. Bruce had also starred in a couple of films that didn’t set the box office on fire, like Blind Date and Sunset. But Die Hard was shaping up to be his big break. He knew it, and his team knew it too. That’s why they negotiated a $5 million paycheck for him—an astronomical figure for a so-called "TV actor" back then.
“It’s a classic move in the business called ‘grab what you can,’” Bruce told me just before Die Hard—a film that would later spawn four sequels, with a fifth on the horizon—hit theaters. “No one held a gun to our heads. In an industry where everything can vanish overnight, you take what you can get. And Fox seemed pretty happy with how everything turned out. They paid me what they thought I was worth, and I delivered.” With a staggering global gross of $148 million against a $28 million budget, it’s safe to say the executives slept soundly in '88.
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But here’s the thing: Bruce wasn’t too fussed about box office numbers beyond the fact that they kept him employed. “At the end of the day, all I can do is give my best as an actor,” he explained. “After that, it’s out of my hands. Sure, you can talk about the movie, but who knows what that really does? Take Sunset, for instance. I loved what I did in that movie, and it didn’t do well at the box office. That’s just how it goes. Doesn’t really matter one way or another.”
A Steep Learning Curve
When someone pointed out that the success of Moonlighting probably raised the stakes for Die Hard, Bruce grinned and launched into a personal mantra he’d clearly been repeating to himself: “Stick with me here,” Bruce said, “but when Moonlighting first premiered, everyone said, ‘This show is groundbreaking! It’s fresh and innovative!’ And then, after a while, you folks in the press started asking, ‘Okay, but what’s really going on with Bruce Willis? What’s under all that charm?’ They wanted to dig deeper, to figure out what made Bruce Willis tick. The pressure that came with that was something I wasn’t ready for. No one can hand you a manual that says, ‘Here’s how you handle fame.’ So, I was learning on the job. And guess what? I got through it, didn’t I? I learned a lot from the experience.”
