The Harder They Fall

Contrary to popular belief, Samuel L. Jackson did not invent the word 'motherfucker'. The time is 1988, the place Nakatomi Plaza, Los Angeles, and little known TV actor Bruce Willis is poised to shoot to superstardom on the back of possibly the greatest action film ever made, and four little words. All together now: "Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker."

Obviously Willis no more coined the word than did Jackson. But when the legend outgrows the truth, print the legend. "That expression has become part of the Die Hard mythology over time," says Willis. "When I first said it, it was just a cool thing to say to Alan Rickman when he was calling me Mr. Cowboy. I'm amazed that such a simple line would become part of the language of pop culture."

It's a line that does get replayed in Die Hard 4.0, albeit muffled by a gunshot to ensure a rating in accordance with the studio's decision to go for a PG-13 certificate. Much has been made, and much fanboy wrath vented, over how this makes a mockery of all that Die Hard stands for. Willis though is adamant that they haven't turned out a 'soft' Die Hard film, even if he's not one hundred percent happy with the approach. "The reason I was able to make Die Hard was because Cybil Shepherd got pregnant and I was released from Moonlighting for eleven weeks. You can't cuss on TV so I was excited about the unbridled cussing that Die Hard offered. Yes, there's less swearing in Die Hard 4.0, but we live in very parochial times. It's the rules we have to live by. But we never thought about shooting for a rating, we shot a hard core Die Hard film, one that will eventually be seen."

For Willis there are several reasons why it's taken so long for the fourth instalment to come to the screen. "Everything happens exactly the way it's supposed to happen. Twelve years was exactly the right time. If it had happened any other time I might not have met Len and we wouldn't have had this great cast, so that's the positive side of all this. Over the years there'd been talk about a new Die Hard picture but nothing really gelled for me until we came up with the angle of the two things most important to McClane being threatened. McClane loves his family above all, and he despises anyone who preys on people who cannot defend themselves. This was a fresh take on the character but it always stayed true to his nature. The stakes are higher now but he's still the regular guy unexpectedly confronted with some very irregular circumstances."

Of course the intervening years haven't seen him getting any younger, but that's not something that overly concerns him. He knows the character is older, but he still wanted McClane to look like he could handle whatever is thrown at him. "I go to the gym. I lift weights. I'm lazy and I don't like to do it, but it's part of the work. I'm 52 years old and I don't bounce off concrete as easy as I used to. My legs are black and blue and I'm beat to shit. The stuff I did with Maggie Q is just bananas. We spent two weeks shooting our fight scenes together and she was great. I've never fought a woman before and I've certainly never had my ass kicked by one before. If I'm going to do another one I'd better hurry up."

"The first film has always been the high watermark of what Die Hard and a lot of other action movies should aspire to. I really wanted to live up to the first film. Die Hard 2 was really self-referential and Die Hard With a Vengeance had some cool components, but we wanted to take another shot at it to get as close to the first film as possible."

Getting as close to the first film as possible may have proved difficult, however, when there's such a temptation in modern movie-making to allow the special effects to overshadow the meat and bones of the production, but Willis doesn't agree. "While we did do some CGI, plenty of it is real and the director had the courage to do some old school stunts. We flew a real car into a real helicopter. We always envisioned Die Hard 4.0 as a straight ahead action ride that was true to the tone and character of the original but updated for today. This isn't one of those films that's completely reliant on CG effects. I've done those films and there's nothing wrong with them, but in the spirit of Die Hard the action has to be smashmouth, and I think we've more than accomplished our goal."