I thought Bruce Willis was a great job, but I just wonder why he was cast in the role of a child psychologist as he was known for playing action/tough guy roles.
shareI think Willis got a hold of the script and liked it a lot and really wanted to be involved. He was Shaylaman's first choice from what I read.
shareI thought he was excellent. Some of his best work.
shareWanted to do something different probably. He's far from the first actor to play against type. Besides, he actually started off his career mainly doing comedies, him being cast in the first Die Hard, was a huge wtf casting at the time... many people forget that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqzppLZRNuA
I had the DVD and the director said that he had written the script with Willis in mind... but thought they wouldn't be able to afford him since he was getting close to 15-20 million per movie back then and the entire budget was like 50 million, they sent him the script and he was interested in the role since he liked the story and had publicly said the previous year that he was *retiring* from action movies... he ended up taking a 5 year break from real action, since he returned to the genre in Tears Of The Sun (2003).
Willis had already played a psychologist in the 1994 bomb Color Of The Night, but I doubt that that movie was what made M. Night write the role for Willis.
According to the "IMDB Movie Facts", the part of the child psychologist was written with Bruce Willis in mind.
share[deleted]
It's good to hear that the director had Willis in mind. I think that it's one of Willis' best performances. I'd also rate his performance in Unbreakable as really good. Two very subtle underplayed performances. Just a shame that he doesn't get those sort of juicy roles at the moment.
share