Bruce Willis almost died during the first day of filming Die Hard
Bruce Willis has said that crew members on the set of Die Hard (1988) were concerned that he had died after he completed a stunt on the first day of filming the project.
The actor, now 68, played police officer John McClane in the beloved film and its subsequent sequels, which saw the character face various challenging situations.
He's spoken in the past about the stunts in the film and it's been claimed that Bruce "nearly died" taking on one of them whilst working on the first instalment in the series.
His experience working on the film has been recalled in Nick de Semlyen's newly-released book The Last Action Heroes, which goes behind-the-scenes with different actors.
Bruce Willis played John McClane in Die Hard (1988) and the subsequent sequels in the film series (Getty Images)As reported by Fox News, Bruce recalls a stunt almost going wrong whilst filming Die Hard. The stunt is said to have seen him jump off the top of a five-storey parking garage onto an inflatable airbag.
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The actor - who it was announced last year was retiring from acting amid health issues - is said to have been wearing only black pants and had been lathered in a gel-like substance, which he was reportedly told would prevent him catching on fire.
After jumping from the top of the building and landing on the airbag, plastic bags of gasoline are said to have been detonated, which reportedly pushed Bruce to the edge of the airbag.
It's been reported that crew members immediately rushed over to the actor following the stunt, which Bruce said he had initially thought was them coming over to praise him.
The actor is said to have recalled an experience working on a stunt during filming of the first instalment (AFP via Getty Images)He's quoted as recalling: "When I landed, everyone came running over to me and I thought they were going to say, 'Great job! Attaboy!' And what they were doing is seeing if I'm alive because I almost missed the bag."
According to the book, the crew allegedly opted to film the scene early in filming so they had time to recast the role if something went wrong.
The outlet suggests that director John McTiernan, 72 - who also directed the third instalment, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) - didn't consider the stunt too dangerous.
He said: "We didn't do anything dangerous with Bruce. He loved doing it." John is quoted as saying that films are a "manufacturing activity" and you "don't get your workers hurt".
Bruce's now ex-wife Demi Moore spoke about visiting him on set in an op-ed published in 2019 (Getty Images)He's quoted as having added that the night in question made it so that Bruce "could imagine the real circumstance" and "could really say 'Holy s***, this is f***ing crazy!'".
Bruce's ex-wife Demi Moore, 60 - who was in a relationship with him around the time of production - seemed to mention the stunt in a piece for the Telegraph in 2019.
Demi - who was married to Bruce from 1987 to 2000 - wrote in the article, said to be an extract from her memoir Inside Out, that her visit to set "turned out to be terrible."
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"He nearly died jumping off a five-storey garage, just making it on to the airbag below when he was blown off course by a scripted explosion. He laughed about it. I didn't," she wrote.
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