Since the announcement of his early retirement, tributes to Bruce Willis have been pouring in. Many people remember the legendary actor fondly. But not everyone enjoyed working with him: this director is proof…
You can’t please everyone! Throughout his career spanning more than 40 years, Bruce Willis has made many friends who have paid tribute to him since announcing his early retirement due to an early form of dementia. But the actor was also known for being difficult on set to the detriment of certain directors who simply did not like working with him.
This is the case of Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Rage in the Belly, the Equalizer saga) who directed him in the war film Tears of the Sun with Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser and Eamonn Walker.
Revolution Studios
In an interview with the BBC in 2014, the director was asked about his career. And to the question “Who’s the biggest pain in the ass you’ve ever worked with?”, he simply replied Bruce Willis !
“A pain in the ass, no problem there. We just didn’t get along. We got along off camera, but on the set of [Larmes du soleil], we just didn’t get along. Some men don’t get along when it comes to work – you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of view, different filmmaking methods – and we didn’t get along. Off camera we were friends – Bruce is great – but we just don’t get along when it comes to work, and that’s about it.”
Outside of work, everything is going well: we are reassured!
As a reminder, The sun’s Teardrops takes place in Nigeria, where the President’s family has just been assassinated and a civil war is about to break out. A secret commando led by Lieutenant Waters is sent to the edge of the jungle to evacuate Lena Kendriks, a doctor working for a humanitarian organization, from a village threatened by rebels. But the course of the mission changes when it refuses to leave without the villagers…
After the filming, Bruce Willis files a complaint
But ultimately, on his side too, Bruce Willis had reason to complain… towards the film studio! The actor in fact sued Revolution Studios in October 2004, in order to obtain compensation for “negligence” having caused “mental and physical” injuries during the filming of Tears of the sun two years before.
According to the complaint, Bruce Willis allegedly received a projectile in the face from a pyrotechnic device used to give the illusion of bullets hitting the ground. Wounded in the forehead, he would have suffered afterwards “significant mental, physical and emotional pain”. He then demanded compensation as well as reimbursement of his medical expenses.
Revolution Studios
Joe Pancake, the film’s special effects specialist, declared that the actor had been hit by a “hot socket” but had not been seriously injured and that his medical records showed that doctors had simply prescribed Paracetamol to relieve his pain. The lawsuit was settled in 2005, but we don’t know if any money was exchanged between the two parties.
In 2022, friends of the actor speculated in a statement to DailyMail that his initial diagnosis of aphasia may have been linked to the aforementioned injuries. In February 2023, in a recent development of his illness, the family of Bruce Willis said his condition had progressed and he had now been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and that “his communication problems were just a symptom of the disease”. They now hope that media attention to the actor’s health will raise awareness about the disease.
Tears of the Sun is currently available on Netflix.
