RED 2’s Bruce Willis on Kissing Two Girls & Anthony Hopkins’ Nutty Professor
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Monday, 01 July 2013 21:34
- Published: Monday, 01 July 2013 21:34
- Written by Lupe Haas
In RED 2, Bruce Willis reprises his role as a retired CIA operative along with his black-ops friends to track down a missing portable nuclear device. Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker return while newcomers Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anthony Hopkins join the cast for the hilarious action movie.
Bruce Willis and Anthony Hopkins teamed up for interviews in New York City to talk about all the fun the cast had on set. Bruce boasts about not having one, but two actresses to kiss for this production while Anthony Hopkins explains why you don’t mess around with a prop gun on set.
RED 2 opens July 19, 2013.
Q: Anthony, what did you think when you first read the screenplay about how you would shape your character and Bruce how did you want your character to have changed from the first film?
Bruce Willis: I’ll talk about the romance. I get to kiss two women in this film, which I seldom get to do in my other work. I get to kiss girls. My character is so befuddled. I like to play befuddled characters who don’t quite know what’s going on and are kind of behind the information chain. I always have fun working and goofing around because that’s what it feels like. I just love working.
Anthony Hopkins: The director wrote me an email, and we’d met just briefly before, and I said, “It’s interesting. I’m playing a crazy person and I’ve got a very short attention span, really deficient disorder, so I lose track of the story. So I came back to this and thought in the situation, I was playing a mad scientist whose been locked up. He asked me what I thought and I said, “There’s a way of playing someone who’s very English,” and I’m not English, I’m Welsh, “where they are very eccentric. There was a famous astronomer in England who just died named Patrick Moore who is a brilliant genius but completely off the wall. I said, “I think this guy’s been to Cambridge. He’s a nuclear physicist, he’s a theoretical mathematician, he’s a genius, but he’s completely bonkers.” Of course, the CIA has locked him up because they think he’s dangerous. The twist is that he’s not mad at all but he feigns madness. I knew this man in England, another professor, who is completely off the wall, genius but he never knew the time of day or where he was. He used to ask people where he lived. That’s what I wanted to play as a kind of foil. A distraction to the real plot to mislead people. I chose some old broken shoes and an old tweed jacket from the 1970s and said let’s go for it and that’s what they did.
Q: Bruce, Mary Louise said she felt bad about slapping you so much. Should she feel bad? Secondly, can you talk about working with John Malkovich?
BW: I was slapped in the film? I haven’t seen the final cut. No, I like that scene. I get to do something that I seldom get to do in film where I have that Daffy look where I’m coming out of unconsciousness. I never get to do it. Sometimes directors are very strict about saying the words just right and you have to say the instead of that but this isn’t like that. We get to film some of those things. We did get to have some fun on this film and that was one of the scenes. She was letting me have it. You never know what’s gonna happen around Malkovich. He makes me laugh all the time. That’s a very good thing. Sometimes we have to go again because we’re laughing so hard but we kinda get away with laughing on camera. He was giving me romantic advice for most of the film and I liked that advice. I have fun on these films. I rush into work and don’t lollygag or go in late because I don’t want to do it. We were all happy to show up and make each other laugh.
Q: Tony, there was a little grace note when you and Brian Cox face each other on camera as the two Hannibal Lectors. The writers said that you talked about that before you shot it...
AH: No we didn’t. We didn’t mention Hannibal Lector. Our publicist was there and asked to get a shot of the two of us. We didn’t think of it. I hadn’t seen Brian in a long time and we didn’t know each other that well. I had seen him a few times but we didn’t know each other. The first day we met was on that airport scene and we met but no we didn’t discuss that. We talked about Russia because I was going to Moscow for my birthday on New Year’s Eve and he’s been in Russia a lot and told me all about it. That was the main bulk of our conversation. There was nothing about Lector.
Q: Bruce, you seem to be the go-to guy for action and Mary Louise was saying that she’d want you there over anyone. Have you been looking for something out of left field and do a role that no-one would ever expect you to do?
BW: I think I’m very fortunate where I get asked to do a lot of different kinds of things. Some of them include weapons. Some of them include jokes. Some of them want me to make out with women who I’m not married to. How often does that happen? Does that ever happen to you where you’re told you can kiss three women and pick who they are? It’s a strange thing isn’t it? What if you were asked right now to lean over and lay one on? It would add to the day. It’s always fun.
Q: At this point, do you even have to think about how you fire a gun or is it just second nature?
BW: Safety is so important; not shooting your fellow actors, not shooting yourself, not having the gun go off in your pocket. Safety really is my biggest concern. Not hurting anyone. Sometimes, you get to work with kids, you don’t want to shoot the kids. You have to be safe. You don’t want to shoot anyone really.
AH: I had a gun in a scene and I was walking with Bruce and I noticed he made sure that everything was safe. The gun happened to be loaded at one point because he had to go into a continuous but he was very aware of the safety and consequences of a firearm going off. I haven’t done that much but he has. You don’t mess around. In England, if you have to have a gun on set, they are so tough. As soon as you fire a gun, they’ll take it away from you because we don’t have firearms. Very few, anyways.
BW: Safety first. I have four daughters. Safety is my middle name around the house.
Q: I enjoyed this one more than the first. Bruce, what made you want to come back and Anthony what made you want to join in on this second one?
BW: I’m always excited to see who comes to work on the films. I was very excited that Tony said yes and everyone was really excited. It’s nice that you get to work with people who you’re a fan of and you get to have fun. I don’t really feel like we took it that seriously. We just had a ball. We were just laughing and watching each other do what we do. I wasn’t that concerned. I was a little more confused on the first one because it felt like we were trying to do some many things at the same time; comedy, action, romance; but somehow it seemed to work out. More romance in this one than the first one. I haven’t seen the final cut so I don’t know how it ends. Don’t tell me.
AH: I love the first one. I just liked the work. I would read the phone book if you asked me to do it. I’ve just reached an age where I want to be around. I’m a big fan of Bruce and I saw the first Die Hard and then Red and the Sixth Sense. I just love to work. I wouldn’t do anything but I tell young actors looking for advice to keep working. If you can do anything, just keep working. Just work, work, work. I have a young niece that had her first part in a film and she’s really good. She’s never acted before and I said just to work hard and enjoy it and have a great time at it. It beats working for a living.
Q: We obviously just lost James Gandolfini and I was wondering about New Jersey actors. There’s a lot of New York actors but do you think there’s another lead of the New Jersey scene?
BW: Well, it’s a very peculiar state, New Jersey. I’m surprised anyone from New Jersey get to work in show business but somehow a lot of them have managed to make a big career out of it. I certainly miss James Gandolfini. Great guy. Life is short. You gotta live it up, have fun, laugh, eat good food, do whatever you want, don’t hurt people, try and have as much fun as you possibly can. You can make out with each other whenever you want. Don’t worry. Mr. Willis said it was part of the job. Think about it.
Q: How was it at home after you made out with Catherine Zeta Jones for the day?
BW: I change diapers, it’s very humbling changing diapers, and I’m happy to be doing it. It’s just me. I’m one guy and there’s about 30 women in the house. I don’t win very many arguments and we don’t have any arguments. Nobody gets mad if you have to kiss someone every once in a while. It’s right in the script, “Now kisses Mary Louise Parker. Now kisses Catherine Zeta Jones.” There were times where they were trying to get me to kiss John Malkovich but I have to draw the line. With John, you never know what’s gonna happen.
Q: What are the basic elements that turn an action-comedy into a classic and of all the actors in the golden age of Hollywood, who do you imagine in these roles?
BW: I always liked Gary Cooper and Clark Gable.
Q: Where would you want to go for Red 3?
BW: The Caribbean. Tropical. Warm.
