Bruce Willis' vest-clad hero from the "Die Hard" series became an anachronism in the '90s. It wasn't until Quentin Tarantino cast him as a two-bit boxer in "Pulp Fiction" that Willis broke a string of flops. M Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" followed, but Willis' fortunes look set to turn again with Antoine Fuqua's "Tears of the Sun".
You're well known for being very supportive of the military and the armed forces. Is that partly why you wanted to play a Navy Seal?
This film is about heroism. It's about really strong bonds of friendship that exist between these Navy Seal teams. And it's about a man trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. It happens in real time on the screen. We got the endorsement of the Naval department on this film, which is the first time it's ever happened. So we were all very happy.
What kind of a man is your character Lt AK Waters?
He follows orders. He just interprets them in a different way in order to get the mission done.
How authentic is the film, do you think, in its portrayal of Navy Seals and what they do?
All the actors playing Navy Seals worked really hard to make the real Navy Seals as proud of us as we could. We worked hard. We trained hard every day. It was hard on this film. There wasn't an easy day. As Navy Seals say, the only easy day is yesterday.
Apparently the weather in Hawaii during filming wasn't that great...
We were always muddy and we were always wet so when they called cut, we just all laid down in the mud!
How about working with Monica Bellucci?
She's an amazing actress. Her character, although it's not specifically mentioned in the movie, works for an amazing organisation, Doctors Without Borders. You know, they work out there under extremely difficult conditions, helping people who really need help. They're being shot at, they're under fire every day, and my heart goes out to them.
And you had some real refugees, the so-called 'Lost Boys', as extras on this film, didn't you?
The 'Lost Boys' were fantastic. They lent an air of authenticity to it and made the film a lot more realistic.
