[IMG:L]It took years of Bruce Willis wanting to make it, and in 2007, the Die Hard franchise finally returned to theaters in the grand fashion that it so richly deserved. In this fourth installment there was a plot for the new millennium, centering on cyber terrorism, the usual truckload of witty McClane one-liners, and explosions–oh my, were there explosions.
Grossing $350-plus million worldwide at the box office since its first shots rang out in late June, Live Free or Die Hard, the ultimate in summer blockbuster fare, took the story of street savvy cop John McClane to the next level.
When we first met Willis’s McClane in the 1988 action classic Die Hard, his recent Live Free co-stars, Justin Long and Maggie Q, were then only 10 and 9 years old, respectively. Long, judging from his lightning-fast approach of rattling off humorous anecdote after anecdote, was assumedly the clown of 5th grade at the time. Maggie Q grew up in Hawaii with dreams of becoming a veterinarian–a far cry from the role of model-turned-sparring starlet that she’s now settled into.
[IMG:R]Celebrating the DVD release of the film, Hollywood.com caught up with the two young, dynamic stars to reflect on the thrilling experience they had while making this bigger-than-life blockbuster.
Hollywood.com: What are your feelings about the film now as opposed to when it hit theaters?
Justin Long: I think that enough time has passed since the last round of press that I now have new things to say. After a while, you start subconsciously developing these stock answers and you can’t get around that. There are only so many things you can ask about Die Hard: “What was Bruce Willis like?”…
Maggie Q: [Laughs] I never get asked what Bruce was like!
JL: I think I even got asked what Bruce Jenner was like after awhile [laughs]. But there’s also the sense of not wanting to be complacent with answers, because I like to talk. So there’s something nice about keeping yourself entertained. The movie’s come out; the pressure’s off, so we can now step back with our new perspective.
MQ: Yes, it came out and it did well, so at least we don’t feel like complete idiots now.
[IMG:R]HW: Were there any reviews of Live Free or Die Hard, positive or negative, that particularly stood out to you? Do you generally pay attention to reviews?
JL: This was actually the first movie where I made a conscious effort to not read any reviews because I have such a thin skin. But I have to say that as a kid I loved Mad Magazine, and one day my publicist called me saying, ‘I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re in Mad Magazine. The bad news is your Mac ads are No. 1 on the list of the 50 worst things about TV’ [laughs dejectedly].
MQ: There’s a ton of websites dedicated to hating me. I got this email from a girl who runs a fan club in Asia and she said that since I’ve gotten bigger roles in America, there are all these sites that have popped up on the web, writing about how much they hate me for forgetting where I come from and for going to ‘Hollywood.’ But I’m not even from Asia!
HW: With Live Free what were some of the efforts made to not only appeal to the fans of the old trilogy, but also to a new generation of fans? As producer, was Bruce vocal about maintaining certain trademark Die Hard elements?
JL: Bruce was definitely very hands-on, which was very cool to see. He could’ve just waltzed his way through and collected his paycheck, but he came in with so many ideas and constantly tried to make it better. He was very meticulous.
[IMG:R]MQ: He really knows what works too, especially in a genre like this. What I really admired about him in this installment was that he gave the younger spotlight to Justin and sort of said, “Well, this is a franchise that’s been going on for a very long time and I can’t expect to be the John McClane that I was 20 years ago”–which is really smart. A lot of people were wondering if he [Bruce] would be able to pull it off, but he wasn’t exactly pretending to be something he’s not.
JL: Then again, there were things he was doing that I, at 25, couldn’t do. For a guy at 52, he was really very limber.
HW: Going into this movie, were you already familiar with the concept of cyber terrorism?
MQ: No.
JL: Yeah, the short answer is “no.” And I got kind of lazy, because I was coming off of another movie and got cast here at the last minute. I tend to get a little over-analytical with certain characters’ back-stories. But here, the fact that he’s a hacker kind of has nothing to do with his journey in the film. There were times when I’d ask questions just to be aware, but mostly I just had to say complex terms–like I knew what they meant.
[IMG:L]HW: Were the major, daunting action scenes fun in some sort of sadistic way, or is it just not that hard to act frightened because you actually are?
JL: Sometimes it’s very easy, but it’s a lot like doing a horror movie. My character is a normal guy in a ridiculously abnormal situation, so there’s not a lot of room, when you’re getting shot at by a machine gun, for nuance and subtlety; which is a scary thing because all you’re told as a movie actor, as opposed to theater, is to internalize more and make smart choices.
MQ: People come on action movies all the time and have no idea what to do. They don’t know what’s over the top–or not–because there is no room for subtlety.
HW: Maggie, for your final, extensive fight scene in the film, how long does something like that take to shoot?
MQ: Months. The guys were adamant about learning a whole fight, as opposed to in Asia where shooting and editing a fight scene is very choppy. I felt like I lived in that elevator shaft. Also Len [Wiseman, director] insisted on my character not being stylized or overly pretty. I loved that about him, because if I’m going to fight in a movie I want it to be hardcore and I’m going to do it like a man.
[IMG:R]JL: Watching that scene was so cool, but it was funny also because Maggie can genuinely kick ass–and Bruce, I think, was a little surprised by how good she was.
HW: When you were approached to do the film, did you think you had to go get in tip-top shape and pump amazing amounts of iron with Bruce?
MQ: I was coming off of a comedy, Balls of Fury, at the time, but there were some fight scenes in that, so I had been training. I didn’t have too much time to train for Die Hard specifically, so I kept up with it while we were filming.
JL: [Smiles] And I just brought a pair of Depends!
