Bruce Willis: Why I Gave Up Stone-Cold Sobriety

'Die Hard' series veteran also touches on movie violence
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 16, 2013 4:52 PM CST
Bruce Willis: Why I Gave Up Stone-Cold Sobriety
Actor Bruce Willis smiles during the press conference for his new movie "Looper" during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012.   (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Aaron Vincent Elkaim)

With critics mauling the Die Hard series' fifth installment, Bruce Willis talks to GQ about movie violence, struggling actors, and his return to light drinking, Huffington Post reports. The 57-year-old—once a promoter of Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers before going sober in 1988—has eased up on the sobriety thing: "Once I realized that I wasn't gonna run myself off the pier of life with alcohol, drinking vodka out of the bottle every day ... I have wine now, mostly when I eat." In other excerpts:

  • "[My goal right now is] to keep it looking lifelike," he says. "In the past few months, I've read a lot about Old Hollywood—Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden. Every story is that everyone was struggling. Everyone was flailing wildly. And it's kind of reassuring."
  • On whether movie violence leads to the real thing: "I recently heard one of my fellow actors say it in three words: 'Just shut up.' Just go silent," he says. "Maybe it's being older. ... I once thought that somehow, with this job, also comes the inherent right to say whatever the f--k I want regardless of whether I'm right or wrong or think that anybody needs to hear it or should hear it." (Willis apparently leans right politically.)
Click for the full interview or HuffPo's article. (More Bruce Willis stories.)

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