In honor of “Die Hard” star Bruce Willis‘ 70th birthday on Wednesday, Samuel L. Jackson revealed the insightful career advice the actor gave him on the set of 1995’s “Die Hard With a Vengeance.”
Willis and Jackson famously both starred in Quentin Tarantino’s generation-defining 1994 hit, “Pulp Fiction.” It was not until Jackson was cast as the character Zeus in “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” though, that he and Willis actually got to share scenes together onscreen. While making the blockbuster, Jackson says Willis gave him an important piece of career advice.
“He told me, ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves,” Jackson told Vanity Fair. “He said, ‘Arnold’s got ‘Terminator.’ Sylvester’s got ‘Rocky,’ ‘Rambo.’ I’ve got John McClane.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’” It was not until 2008’s “Iron Man” came around that Jackson listened to Willis.
“It didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role — and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury — that, ‘Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said,’” he revealed. “I’ve got this character now.”
To date, Jackson has played Fury in a total of 16 movies and TV shows for Marvel Studios. He currently ranks as the highest-grossing actor of all time — just barely ahead of fellow longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe star Scarlett Johansson. Jackson has, however, never gotten the chance to reprise his “Die Hard With a Vengeance” character. After that film, Willis returned two more times as John McClane in 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard” and 2013’s “A Good Day to Die Hard.”
While his time in the “Die Hard” franchise was limited, Jackson did eventually reunite with Willis in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero drama “Unbreakable,” as well as its 2019 sequel, “Glass.”
In March 2022, Willis’ retirement from acting was officially announced after he was diagnosed with aphasia. A year later, it was revealed that Willis had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. He has, consequently, all but vanished from the public spotlight in recent years, though he still occasionally appears in supportive social media posts by his family members.
