When it comes to action movie stars of the 1980s and 1990s, Bruce Willis is one of the most interesting of the group. He started out in TV comedy, making his name on Moonlighting. Then came Die Hard, one of the most celebrated action movies of all time.
Willis' starring roles took his career in a whole new direction, which in turn led him to superstardom. His action movies have a distinct flavor to them, in no small part due to the man who stars in them.
10 Wears His Watch Weird
If you're gonna make a name for yourself, the details matter. In the case of Bruce Willis, one of those details is the way he wears his watch, upside down and on the inside of his wrist. It's not that other people don't do that, but it isn't extremely common and is something people notice. If you keep your eyes open in movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance, you see his personal preference pop up with his characters.
9 Aging Badass
Bruce's career as an action star began in earnest with Die Hard in 1988 and continues into its fourth decade. He's been able to maintain his career by successfully playing the aging action hero so perfectly.
That's kind of the point of the Red movies. Bruce Willis, and the characters he plays, are the kind of people who just get better as they get older.
8 The Bad Guy Trying To Do Good
There are those Bruce Willis characters who are best described as bad guys trying to do good, such as The Whole Nine Yards. Frankly, his character in Red can fit into that category, as well. The key thing about these characters is that they're bad guys who really aren't all that bad in the first place. They are hitmen and CIA assassins, but that doesn't inherently mean they're bad people.
7 Doesn't Hide His Wounds
Characters like the ones he plays in Die Hard and The Last Boy Scout take a beating. In fact, a lot of his characters get their asses kicked pretty badly. But that happens in action movies. What doesn't happen as often is the hero acknowledging his state.
By the end of Die Hard, John McClane can barely hold himself up as he drags his broken and beaten body out of Nakatomi Plaza.
6 Meets His Younger Self A Lot
This might not happen in every movie Bruce Willis is in, but he does have a tendency to meet his younger self more often than most people. It comes up in 12 Monkeys and again in Looper. He also meets a younger version of himself in The Kid, but that hardly qualifies as a badass movie. Still, Bruce Willis spends a lot of time learning lessons from himself before he learned those lessons. It can get a little confusing.
5 Gruff Demeanor
There's no one more gruff in a movie, or in an interview, than Bruce Willis. His characters are the grumpiest group of individuals you're going to find at the movies. They mean well, but they're all so very stubborn and kind of jerks. But that's also what makes his characters so endearing and engaging.
They maintain that exterior as a way of getting through the hardships they get faced with in the movies. You can pick almost any Bruce Willis movie, or interview, to see this play out.
4 Warmth And Humor
Hiding underneath that gruff demeanor is the proverbial heart of gold. Bruce Willis brings a level of warmth and humor to his movies that few other action stars do. It's one of the reasons he was cast to play John McClane in Die Hard in the first place. Action movie characters can be fun to watch but hard to relate to. Bruce Willis makes action movies relatable.
3 Annoyed By Every Situation
It's also funny how annoyed his characters get by the situations they're in, and it's kind of hard to blame them. His characters don't really seem to get angry about doing what they need to do. They just do it. But they still seem put out by it, like they're just bothered by the entire situation.
In Die Hard 2, he's just trying to pick his wife up at the airport and everything goes haywire. McClane just looks irritated by the situation throughout the entire movie.
2 Self-Deprecating
Action movie characters, at least in the 1980s and 1990s, always seem to take themselves way too seriously. Bruce Willis characters, on the other hand, seem to be less about their own personal glory most of the time. In The Last Boy Scout, Joe Hallenbeck just does not care what anyone thinks about him. Characters like Joe or John McClane are the first to put themselves down.
1 Everyman
Action heroes often have a great deal of specialized training, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando or Sylvester Stallone in First Blood. But Bruce Willis characters, particularly early ones like John McClane, don't have much in the way of special skills. He's usually just a guy who gets caught in a bad situation and does what he has to do to survive it. In that way, Willis is the best at portraying the everyman in extraordinary situations.
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