Bruce Willis back for fun on the run
Red 2’s sensitive tough guy mulls over No. 3
NEW YORK — After 25 years in the movie business, Bruce Willis is rarely surprised by things. But that changed when he saw Red.
Adding to the pleasant yet unexpected series of events was the subsequent critical and financial success of the 2010 spy comedy.
Less astonishing is the fact that the 58-year-old’s back promoting the sequel Red 2, which opens Friday.
In the action comedy, Willis’s black-ops agent Frank Moses returns to active duty again (he was RED: Retired, Extremely Dangerous) with colleagues Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) by his side.
Their mission is to track down an old weapon of mass destruction before it gets into the wrong hands.
Back for some fun on the run is Frank’s girlfriend Sarah (MaryLouise Parker), who decides to get involved in the secret agent world. Ivan (Brian Cox) shows up, too. He’s a former Soviet spy, and as we discovered in the first picture, Victoria’s Secret lover.
New is Catherine Zeta-Jones, who portrays a cunning Russian agent and one of Frank’s ex-flames. Anthony Hopkins portrays the unstable scientist inventor of the doomsday bomb, while Korean actor Byung Hun Lee plays a high-priced hit man assigned to eliminate Frank before he gets to the bomb.
In Red 2, the explosions are bigger and the laughs are broader, but Willis still leads the way.
“I was a little more confused filming the first Red because it felt like we were trying to do so many things at the same time,” he said at a Manhattan hotel with some of his cast mates.
“There was comedy, action, and romance, but somehow it seemed to work out.”
Early indications are that the second one has clicked, too. The addition of Oscar winners ZetaJones and Hopkins and Asian star Lee (he had co-starring roles in both G.I. Joe flicks) adds a new energy to the proceedings.
The locations are more international, too, with confrontations taking place in London, Paris and Moscow (although a major por- tion of the film was shot in Montreal).
The romantic element of the story is emphasized a bit more this time around, as well — which was fine with Willis.
“I get to kiss two women in this film,” said the actor referring to separate sequences involving the Parker and Zeta-Jones characters. “There were times when they were trying to get me to kiss John Malkovich, but I had to draw the line.”
Certainly, his Frank Moses performance is in contrast to the more serious-minded John McClane from the five Die Hard pictures, introduced with the 1988 original and still going strong thanks to last winter’s A Good Day to Die Hard.
Mind you, Willis has played comic roles before but never with the disarming zeal he manages in Red 2. “I like to play this befuddled guy who doesn’t quite know what’s going on and is kind of behind the information chain,” he said. “I always love goofing around.”
Occasionally, the silliness would overwhelm the cast and not even the fearless leader could settle things down. “You never know what’s going to happen around Malkovich,” said Willis. “He made me laugh all the time, which is a very good thing on a movie like this.
“Sometimes, we would have to go again because we were breaking up so hard, but we all enjoyed ourselves. I would rush into work each day and never lolly gag because I wanted to be there.”
He did have serious moments, which Mirren, Malkovich and es- pecially Hopkins witnessed when the weapons came out for the firefight sequences.
“I hadn’t done much of that but he showed me you don’t mess around,” said Hopkins. “I had a gun in a scene, and I was walking with Bruce, and I noticed he was aware and cautious and made sure that everything was safe.”
Willis couldn’t help but smirk a little when he described himself as a safety-first kind of person in both his professional and personal lives.
“I have four daughters,” he said. “Safety is my middle name around the house.”
Parker insisted Willis’s ability to transfer that contradictory sensitive-tough guy to the big screen is what makes him a star in action flicks, including the Red films.
“He’s just lovely and manly in the best way,” said Parker who felt she had an instant bond with Willis.
“I’m not shy to say that I do love that quality, and he is incredibly masculine and charming. He’s the kind of guy that makes you feel safe; like if someone dangerous came in the room, he could take them out just by looking at them.”
Mirren became a Willis fan on Red almost immediately and continues to sing his praises after filming the sequel.
“It’s very difficult to be free on a film like this because it’s so technical and controlled,” Mirren reported. “To be free requires a great skill. Bruce has it to the max. I would always watch Bruce and take my lead from him.”
In fact, they all might be able to re-connect for at least one more Red.
A third one is in the pre-production planning stages.