The 1988 movie that almost made Bruce Willis go deaf: “I suffer two-thirds partial hearing loss”
Prior to 1988, Bruce Willis was best known for his exploits on TV, having landed the lead role on the police show Moonlighting, which saw him play a private detective alongside Cybill Shepherd, a character that landed him an Emmy and a Golden Globe award.
It also granted him a number of other opportunities, where he released an album, The Return of Bruno, and became the spokesman for Seagram’s Golden Wine Cooler products, an advertising campaign so successful that Seagram wine became known as ‘Bruce Juice’. However, we all know there was only one role that made him a household name.
After everyone else in Hollywood turned it down, Willis accepted the role of a gritty New York cop forced to liberate his estranged wife and a group of hostages from the grasp of a German terrorist. The role was John McClane and the film was, of course, Die Hard, a major sleeper hit that became a classic of the action (and Christmas) genre and catapulted Willis to worldwide stardom. Without it, he wouldn’t be the action legend he is today, but it also changed his life in a different, much worse sense.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2007, Willis was asked to name his most “unappealing habit”, and while answering this question, he inadvertently revealed that Die Hard had left him with a life-altering injury.
“Due to an accident on the first Die Hard, I suffer two-thirds partial hearing loss in my left ear,” he explained, “[I] have a tendency to say, ‘Whaaa?’”
The accident took place in the scene where McClane is fighting a group of Hans Gruber’s goons in one of Nakatomi Plaza’s meeting rooms, during which he shoots one of the baddies through a table. Willis accidentally held his gun too close to his ear, and the blank cartridges went off right next to his head, which is what caused the damage, and unfortunately, might have contributed to his aphasia diagnosis, as hearing loss can often mask the early symptoms of dementia.
This was far from the only accident to occur on the set of Die Hard; the moment that McClane falls down a ventilation shaft and saves himself at the last minute only made it into the film because Willis’ stunt double fell further than he initially intended, and editor Frank Urioste liked the way it looked and so decided to keep it in the final cut.
For a scene where McClane launched himself off a building ledge in a fiery explosion, he almost missed the airbag that was supposed to catch him, a mishap that Willis claimed had the onlooking crew thinking he was dead.
Action movies might not be the real thing, but they can be just as dangerous. Hollywood history is littered with accidents on sets that have left actors and stunt performers with injuries far more severe than a ruptured eardrum, even resulting in fatalities. Willis’ injury on the set of Die Hard might have been bad, but given what else we’ve heard, it could have been a lot worse.
