Bruno-Vision: A Journey Through The Career of Bruce Wills

Bruce Willis is my favorite actor. This isn’t new information mind you, I’ve been very vocal about my love for Bruce on this website (proof here, here, and here), and after going on a journey through Tom Cruise’s career, I felt it was time to do the same with ol’ Bruno.

So, I’m going to go through his theatrical career starting from the beginning with his starring debut in Blind Date in 1987 all the way through 2012 with Moonrise Kingdom and Looper. “Why stop there?” you ask? Well, truthfully, those are the last two movies where my boy wasn’t completely sleepwalking his way to the end credits, and I’d like to end this on a high note rather than a whole bunch of movies that at best elicit a shrug and a “that was OK.”

I’m also going to be skipping Die Hard 1-3. “Jordan you dumb idiot, WHY?” Well dear reader, I direct you back to the links in the beginning of this entry. Simply put, I’ve already said plenty about his defining role as John McClane (and so has the entire internet), and besides, I really want to explore and revisit Bruce outside of that franchise. I will, however, include Live Free or Die Hard, a movie whose existence I have denied ever since I saw it at the midnight screening opening day. More on that when the time comes.

I’m also going to skip any cameo, TV work or voice acting (sorry to all you Look Who’s Talking fans) because I want to focus on leading and supporting roles from my favorite movie star, and really dig into the effects of those choices had on his career as a whole. I think people forget that amidst all the action flicks Bruce made time to work with directors like Brian DePalma, Robert Benton, Terry GIlliam, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Zemeckis, Edward Zwick, Walter Hill, Rob Reiner, Barry Levinson, Richard Linklater and Richard Donner. Even more impressive is that more often than not he was very eager to be co lead or a straight up supporting player in some of these movies, letting co stars like Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Annette Bening, Tom Hanks or Paul Newman take the spotlight while he got to play around and do something different or unexpected. And that is the Bruno I want to talk about.

So buckle up, because Bruno-Vision has only just begun.