The one movie ending that shocked Bruce Willis most: “I was completely unprepared”
What has happened to Bruce Willis lately is nothing short of a tragedy. A screen icon forced into early retirement after being diagnosed with aphasia and, later, frontotemporal dementia, there has never been a better time to reflect on the exceptional highlights of his career. While he may be synonymous with action flicks due to his portrayal of John McClane in the bombastic Die Hard franchise, Willis is an actor with genuine dramatic talent beyond his regular typecasting.
Willis has appeared in numerous feature films, with some receiving such poor reception that, at one point, his name was often associated with The Golden Raspberry Awards. However, this also means that for every notable dud in his body of work, the successful ones stand out even more. These include acclaimed films such as Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, and Looper. Even his work in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City is highly commendable.
Most of those who appreciate Willis’ acting would likely assert his interpretation of the ageing boxer, Butch Coolidge, in Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece Pulp Fiction as his definitive role. Formidable but comedic, with a touching dash of emotion underpinning the performance, this was vintage Willis in many ways. According to the director, the actor was also hired because he resembled the male leads of the 1950s in Hollywood’s golden era, which says much about his on-screen presence.
There’s also a strong argument that M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller, The Sixth Sense, features Willis’ most outstanding work. While the American director is also known for his fair share of comically bad flops, there is no doubt that his 1999 breakthrough effort is his finest, with him and Willis proceeding to collaborate on the likes of Unbreakable and Glass.
In The Sixth Sense, Willis stars as Malcolm Crowe, the child psychologist whose patient, played by a young Haley Joel Osment, claims he can see and talk to the dead. The intriguing tale unfolds due to the power of the script and Shyamalan’s camera work and is famed for its shocking twist at the end.
According to Willis, despite it being one of his defining performances, he was not prepared for how the film would play out. In the Making Of documentary, he revealed that he agreed to sign on in a snap decision and was completely taken aback by the twist, just like aghast cinema audiences would be. “I agreed to do it very quickly. I was as surprised by the ending in the script, I think, as the audience was in the theatre,” he explained. “I was completely unprepared for that ending.”
Due to the story’s complexion and the way it gradually moves towards one of cinema’s greatest climaxes, Willis worked hard to ensure that his work as Crowe would not give anything away to the audience, which is a triumph in itself. This is precisely the kind of performance that confirms why Willis is much more than his somewhat one-dimensional action roles might suggest.
“Once I knew the ending of the film and that my character was indeed dead, I had to forget about it and act as if I weren’t. I never really thought about acting as a ghost,” he said before praising Shyamalan’s work on the movie, which he believes resonated with audiences’ beliefs about mortality and the acceptance of death as unavoidable.
