Bruce Willis Initially Refused To Say One Of His Funny Lines In Die Hard 2

Christmas 2024 saw Netflix deliver the latest in a seemingly infinite line of kinda cool action movies ultimately doomed to become the digital equivalent of fossils buried on the servers of the streaming giant. "Carry On" is an action thriller set in LAX, in which Taron Egerton's TSA officer must thwart a plot to unleash a deadly nerve agent onboard a plane. In other words, it was a Christmas action movie set entirely in an airport, and was therefore inescapably indebted to "Die Hard 2."

That particular action sequel has a bit of a strange legacy, which extends beyond influencing middling Netflix movies. While the 1988 original sits atop pretty much every ranking of the "Die Hard" movies, 1990's "Die Hard 2" is surely a contender for second best. The legacy sequels discounted themselves from the conversation by turning Bruce Willis' John McClane into another generic superhero action archetype, which just leaves "Die Hard 2" and the 1995 threequel "Die Hard With a Vengeance." But if you go by what critics said when "Die Hard 2" arrived, you might put it behind "Vengeance." According to many reviewers, the sequel tried too hard to mimic its predecessor, recreating the same situation, tone, and story beats, while failing to do anything original. 

Even its star seems to share that opinion. Posting on the AICN forums back in 2007 (via Rotten Tomatoes) Willis revealed that "Die Hard 2" was his "least favorite, and the least fun" of all the films in the franchise. Why? The star seemed to feel that critics of the movie essentially got it right, with Willis parroting the most common criticism of the movie as being "far too self-referentially precious." He also felt that the story was "all over the place, and suffered from severe un-claustrophobic-ness."

But it seems there could be another big reason why Willis doesn't like "Die Hard 2," and it has to do with a fundamental disagreement about the way John McClane should have been played.

"Die Hard 2" sees John McClane, now an LAPD lieutenant, take on a whole new gang of terrorists while trapped in Washington DC's Dulles Airport. In fairness to its critics, the movie is very much a recreation of the first, just in an airport setting rather than a skyscraper. But "Die Hard" was awesome, so in a sense you have to wonder what's so wrong with more of the same? For Bruce Willis, however, that was the complete wrong way to approach the sequel, at least according to Renny Harlin.

In 2022 the director spoke to Empire about making "Die Hard 2," at one point revealing that Willis came onto the project with ambitions to make McClane a more grounded character. As Harlin explained it, Willis had gone from a "TV star to a movie star overnight" thanks to the success of the original "Die Hard," and that rapid transformation seemingly gave the actor a sense of ownership over his character. Harlin claimed that Willis "had this notion from the beginning that he wanted to now play John McClane totally straight, that this movie had to be serious." Of course, nobody watches a "Die Hard" movie for its naturalism, and that's a point Harlin apparently understood better than his star. The director continued:

"I said to him, 'That's not the John McClane the audience loves. They feel like you're their friend now, and they don't want to lose their friend.' We had a major disagreement about this. He said, 'Those one-liners and jokey comments — that's bulls**t. With lives on the line, you can't say that kind of thing.' I said, 'Yeah, not in real life, but this is a movie. This is Die Hard.'"

The disagreement led to a meeting between Willis, Harlin, and producer Joel Silver, where the trio decided that Willis would be able to deliver the lines his way as many times as he liked. But he'd also have to give Harlin at least one humorous take on the material. "He did it reluctantly, and not so happily," said the director, who used every single lighthearted moment he could in the final cut. This ongoing clash between director and actor led to one particular moment where Willis almost got away with dodging one of the best lines in "Die Hard 2" altogether.

Bruce Willis wasn't the only one unsure about the content of his "Die Hard" sequel. 20th Century Fox (Now 20th Century Studios following Disney's 2019 acquisition of Fox) originally wanted to replace the big passenger plane crash in "Die Hard 2" with a UPS plane crash, before test audiences shook them out of that idea. Unfortunately for Renny Harlin, nothing seemed to shake Willis out of his belief in a more grounded John McClane. Asked to recall one particularly difficult moment from the set of "Die Hard 2," Harlin revealed that Bruce Willis almost got away with not saying one of the film's best lines. It comes when McClane asks an airline representative to use her fax machine, only for the woman to suggest they meet up after her shift is over. John then flashes his wedding ring and says, "Just the fax, ma'am. Just the fax."

According to Harlin, shooting this one beat was "just painful" as it seems Willis was being particularly stubborn about his more serious take on McClane:

"Bruce hated that [line]. He said, 'That is so cheesy and stupid. I refuse to say it.' It took an hour there at the counter with me begging him and Joel [Silver] getting involved to get him to say it once, out of 15 takes. But it's in the movie and people love it."

Harlin also explained how the line was about more than maintaining McClane's humor from "Die Hard," noting how it "shows he cares about his wife. It makes him relatable and really an honourable guy." There's no doubt McClane's charisma and his everyman appeal was crucial to the success of those early "Die Hard" movies, and it certainly seems odd that Willis would want to tone that down for the film. But in fairness, this is just Harlin's recollection of the shoot, and beyond downplaying the quality of "Die Hard 2," Willis hasn't really given his side of things. Either way, Harlin won out in the end. The 1990 sequel ended up recreating the tone of the original and despite what critics say, remains one of the best of the series, even if it does inspire an endless run of streaming imitations for decades to come.