The ‘Die Hard’ line Bruce Willis despised: “I refuse to say it”
By the time Die Hard 2 rolled around in 1990, Bruce Willis was a bonafide movie star. Playing John McClane had shot him to the top of the A-list, and he now had very set ideas on how he wanted to play the role. Chief among these notions was that he didn’t want audiences to see him as a funny television star anymore. He wanted to be taken seriously in his new lane as a movie leading man, so when he set about reprising his role as McClane, he told director Renny Harlin that humour was off the menu. Naturally, this threw Harlin for a loop, as McClane’s humour in the first film was a big part of why audiences loved the character. Willis stuck to his guns, though, and this led to a very uncomfortable situation over a line of dialogue he absolutely despised.
In 2021, Harlin told Empire, “Bruce had turned from a Moonlighting TV star to a movie star overnight with one movie. And it’s not uncommon that when actors get into that position, they sort of develop different goals.” Harlin tried to reason with his star, telling him that audiences had formed a relationship with the McClane of the first movie, and he felt like their friend. Therefore, he feared throwing away the character’s humour would make people feel like they’d lost their pal.
Unfortunately, Willis didn’t see it that way. He wasn’t happy with McClane’s flippant attitude in certain portions of the Die Hard 2 script because the movie’s stakes were so high. Harlin claimed Willis scoffed, “Those one-liners and jokey comments — that’s bullshit. With lives on the line, you can’t say that kind of thing.” Harlin reasoned, “Yeah, not in real life, but this is a movie. This is Die Hard.” Once again, though, Willis wholeheartedly disagreed with his director.
With Willis refusing to back down, Harlin called for an emergency meeting with producer Joel Silver. The result of this mediation was that Willis could shoot as many takes of a scene as he desired, as long as he agreed to do one take the way Harlin envisioned. Harlin chuckled, “He did it reluctantly and not so happily, but he did it.”
However, this reluctance led to a truly awkward day on set when Willis bumped up against a line of dialogue he hated with a passion. During a scene in which McClane is tasked with sending a fax to someone in LA, the female employee who helps him out makes googly eyes at him. McClane sees this, smirks, points to his wedding ring and says, “Just the fax, ma’am. Just the fax.” For whatever reason, this innocuous gag rubbed Willis the wrong way.
“That is so cheesy and stupid,” the star stonewalled Harlin. “I refuse to say it.” A desperate Harlin then spent an hour begging Willis to say the line because he was convinced it would make audiences relate to McClane more, on top of making them laugh. In the end, Silver was drafted in again to smooth things over, and Willis begrudgingly agreed to say it once out of 15 takes.
Harlin had the last laugh, though. When Die Hard 2 was released in cinemas, it doubled the box office haul of the first film. Audiences flocked to see their old pal McClane get himself into a new adventure, and – to Harlin’s delight – the line he fought so hard for was one of the most memorable moments in the picture.
He smiled: “It’s in the movie, and people love it. It’s not just funny; it shows he cares about his wife. It makes him relatable and really an honourable guy. Because it’s not just about saving the world — it’s about something much more personal.”
