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Bruce Willis' Would Forget He Was Filming A Movie In His Last Days On Set, According To Prop Master

posted 2 years ago by TMC-4 (20488)
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https://www.looper.com/1295607/bruce-willis-forget-filming-movie-last-days-set-prop-master/

BY NINA STARNER/MAY 24, 2023 3:40 PM EST

A new documentary about a corrupt Hollywood producer revealed that, while filming one of his very last projects, now-retired actor Bruce Willis was apparently unaware of his surroundings — or the fact that he was even on set to begin with.

An ABC News documentary titled "The Randall Scandal," which uncovers the various scandals and problems caused by producer Randall Emmett, devoted part of its runtime to a story about how Emmett treated Willis during one of the action star's final movies. According to Alicia Haverland, a prop master on the 2021 film "Midnight in the Switchgrass" — Emmett's directorial attempt — Emmett knew that Willis was having trouble remembering his lines, and that he had a special earpiece. Haverland, who frequently worked on films with Emmett's production company Emmett Furla Oasis Films, many of which paid older action stars like Willis $2 million for a day's worth of work, recalled that Willis was definitely unwell during filming.

"As the day progressed, you could tell that he was getting tired and he would start to clip the lines," Haverland remembered. "I started to realize it wasn't clipping. I started to realize that what he was doing was actually forgetting what was being said to him."

Bruce Willis seemed to forget he was making a movie in the first place

Haverland also said that, during a scene set in a diner, Willis lost track of where he was entirely, convinced he was in a real diner. "I go over to repour the coffee, and we're probably doing take number seven or eight, and he puts his hand on the coffee, looks me dead in the eye, and goes, 'Oh no, ma'am, I don't want anymore,'" Haverland remembered. Despite that she reminded him they were shooting a movie, he kept forgetting, so she simply pretended to be a waitress for the remainder of the scene.

In another scene, Haverland said that Willis had trouble kicking in a door, and Emmett became enraged. "[Randall] gets up and he slams the script down and said, 'What the f**k, can't we just get this done?'" Haverland recalled. "Everyone is just real quiet. Randall turns around and walks away, and Bruce looks at, I believe our DP at the time, and goes, 'Did I do something wrong?' And we're all just like, 'No, of course not.'"

Haverland, in her interview, described Willis as a "the sweetest, most soft-spoken man" and regretted not stepping in to defend him from Emmett, who, as the documentary details, was an abusive person to everyone from his assistants to, as it turns out, John McClane himself.

[–] blue1981 (8177) 2 years ago

Sad yes but Willis got paid plenty of Money to be in these bad movies.

[–] Destinata (3564) 2 years ago

Someday, maybe, you'll be confused and have someone thinking they have the right to treat you like the village idiot. The only good part will be when the smart-aleck jerk who says you're being paid good money, you won't really understand the jerk insulted you. You'll just look around bewildered and ask, "Did I do something wrong?"

[–] emori (3674) 2 years ago

His family and managers are to blame here, not some producer or person in comments. They kept bringing him to those sets.

[–] Destinata (3564) 2 years ago

Oh, I'm down plenty on his rotten leaches of a family. But they aren't posting here. Just Mr. Compassion, who thought it was okay because he made a pile of money. He did. As the leaches said -- and were soon to be proven to be liars once we saw the performances -- "Of course he can still act! They wouldn't be paying him all that money if he couldn't act!"

Blood suckers.

[–] blue1981 (8177) 2 years ago

I'm as heartbroken as anyone over Bruce Willis's declining health. I'm just saying you can't claim there was elder abuse when he probably made the most money of any actor in these movies and for the least amount of work. He should have stopped working sooner.

[–] Destinata (3564) 2 years ago

Hi. To understand that he was being abused would have required more brainpower than Mr. Willis had at his disposal. The group of leeches amusingly called "family" were the ones who were benefitting from his work. It gave Bruce something to do and made him feel useful to begin with. Soon, he was just too confused to do the work, and being screamed at didn't help. It just made him more confused. Money mattered to the leeches. There isn't enough money on planet earth to make it worth it to be screamed at when you're confused and fragile. I know. Screaming was my folks' parenting style.

[–] emori (3674) 2 years ago

Its easy to blame some Evil Producers who, probably, were not informed by his people about his diagnose. But there were people inside his circle who drove him every morning to sets and left there, unsupervised and not informing anyone that his was sick and not all there.

Like his wife, agent, manager....

This Randall Emmett guy could easily go out and sue or say that he was not aware and his people are to blame. Because everyone were too greedy. It was easy money for few days work so they just kept bringing him until it was too obvious he was sick and was not able to shoot.

[–] Destinata (3564) 2 years ago

Yeah. No one could tell that the wise-cracking, ad libbing, fellow who owned a theater in Idaho and enjoyed performing in plays had anything wrong with him when he couldn't ad lib for Woody Allen and couldn't remember any of his lines on Broadway. Working more closely with him and it would have to be painfully apparent.

I do agree with you on this -- everyone who could really enjoy spending the money was trying to make money off Willis's back. Like most dementia patients, there's nothing Willis likes more than eating ice cream. I doubt he could make the connection between the amount of money he was making and how much ice cream it could buy, anymore.