Bruce Willis' juggling act - daughters, marriage, new movie

[image]In his new movie, Cop Out, Bruce Willis plays a veteran NYPD officer faced with a huge dilemma.

The dilemma may not be on the scale of dodging bombs and terrorists in Die Hard or blowing up an asteroid on a collision course with Earth like he did in Armageddon, but for a proud Dad this new problem is traumatic.

In Cop Out Willis' character, Jimmy Monroe, has to figure out how to pay for his daughter's $US50,000 wedding on an NYPD officer's salary.

It's a storyline that struck a chord with Willis who has three daughters with ex-wife Demi Moore - Rumer, 21, Scout LaRue, 18, and Tallulah Belle, 15 - although all three are yet to walk down the aisle and if they did, $US50,000 would be loose change for the multi-millionaire actor.

"What? I'm like a thousandaire now," Willis says with his trademark deadpan humour.

"Just between you and me, I hope this movie does well."

Despite being one of Hollywood's highest paid actors since the late 1980s, Willis says his daughters were not raised with silver spoons in their mouths and bottomless bank accounts, instead were taught to be self-sufficient just as he was growing up in New Jersey in a blue collar family.

Willis and Moore were adamant their children would not take their privileged lives for granted.

"At a certain point you have to teach your kids the value of a dollar and how you are going to get them to take work seriously. My kids have all figured it out without any kind of big freak out," Willis, who turns 55 on March 19, explains.

"They know they have to work. There's no free ride.

"They go out and do all the work themselves. They say 'I'm going to be working at Marc Jacobs and I only make this much and if it isn't enough to buy the bike, can you help me out a little bit?' "I say 'Yes'. As long as they work."

One of the proudest moments of Willis' life came when Rumer called her parents in for a heart-to-heart conversation about her desire to be an actress.

"Rumer actually came to her Mum and I and sat and us down," Willis recalls.

"She said 'I know you can help me and I appreciate that, but if I make it I want to know I made it by myself and without any help and people pulling strings'.

"I'm so proud of her for that. She is amazing."

Rumer has had roles in last year's slasher film Sorority Row, the 2008 comedy The House Bunny and guest spots in TV series CSI: NY, Medium and 90210.

Willis and Moore were married for a little over 13 years before divorcing in October 2000. They remain friends, with Willis attending Moore's 2005 wedding to actor Ashton Kutcher and Moore and Kutcher guests at Willis' wedding to fashion model Emma Heming in the Caribbean a year ago.

Willis did enjoy the single life after his split from Moore, dating beautiful models and actresses, but now he says he is happy to settle down.

"I tend to keep to myself and hang with my kids and my wife," he says.

"I'm at home and then we'll go out to eat, that's about it. I used to be a lot more social."

Cop Out is a return to Willis' comedy roots, something often forgotten because of his success as a Hollywood action man.

In his late teens he dabbled with stand-up comedy and improv theatre, but it was his role as wiseguy detective David Addison Jr opposite Cybill Shepherd in the comedy-drama TV series Moonlighting in the 1980s that made the actor a global star.

Cop Out is set in New York and pairs Willis up with chubby American comedian Tracy Morgan, one of the stars of the hit TV sitcom, 30 Rock, who plays Monroe's bumbling NYPD partner, Paul Hodges.

When Monroe and Hodges are suspended, they attempt to come up with the cash for Monroe's daughter's wedding, but the scheme strikes an obstacle and they are forced to negotiate with a violent gang and work with an oddball cat burglar played by American Pie's Sean William Scott.

"I told Bruce and Tracy straight up - I see this movie as a kind of Abbott & Costello film," the film's director, Kevin Smith, best known for comedies including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks, explains.

"Tracy was like 'I thought it was more like I'm Luke Skywalker and Bruce was Han Solo'.

"Bruce was like 'I thought this was Die Hard'.

"But, Bruce is funny. He's not just the straight man.

"The beauty about Bruce and his 25 years in the business is he has a big bag of tricks.

"He just has to crack a bit of his famous smirk, and that's it. People find that hilarious."

During long days on the set, it became a contest between Morgan, Scott and Smith to crack Willis up, particularly during scenes shooting inside a vehicle.

"Sean is sitting in the back of the car, Bruce is driving and Tracy is in the front passenger seat," Smith recalls.

"I was trailing in a van monitoring the shots. "All we wanted to do was make Bruce laugh. That's all we wanted.

"When we earned that smirk, we were like 10-year-old kids. It was like cracking up your father."

Hollywood has been attempting to make Cop Out for decades, with Robin Williams once cast when the movie's title was A Couple of Dicks. More recently Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell were hired, but they departed to work on another cop comedy.

"Dicks of course, is slang word for detectives. It's now called Cop Out because people are afraid to say 'Dicks' in a film even though in the 1940 WC Fields played in a film called The Bank Dick," Willis says.

Willis continues to be in demand as a leading man, with the success of Die Hard 4, the most successful of the action franchise, ensuring a fifth would be made.

He is currently shooting the action comedy Reds with Morgan Freeman and later this year will begin the war drama, The Last Full Measure, with Laurence Fishburne and Andy Garcia.

What has action fans excited is The Expendables, a film directed, written and starring Sylvester Stallone and including an all-star cast of muscles including Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lungdren, mixed martial arts star Randy Couture, professional wrestler Steve Austin and rumoured cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Willis.

The film, about a gang of mercenaries sent to fight pirates in South America, is set for release in August and Willis says he has been asked not to reveal the role he plays.

"I'm under very strict instructions from Sly not to say anything," Willis says.

The Expendables is generating so much buzz because it harkens back to the 1990s when Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis dominated the box office with big action films.

Hollywood has attempted to groom other action stars like Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel to take over, but both failed to have the impact of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis.

"They'll find them," Willis says.

"They find new guys all the time. Some people stay and some people don't."

The movie business has also changed, Willis said, with Hollywood now focused on sequels.

"No one knew in the 80s that the sequel business was big business," he says.

"They just thought 'We'll do another instalment'.

"Now, they're called franchises. It's huge business."