It sounds like Bruce Willis had to try hard to get to โDie Hard.โ
Bill Murray says the action star once had a surprising job to do when he worked on โSaturday Night Liveโ before he hit it big in Hollywood.
While a guest on โWatch What Happens Live with Andy Cohenโ on March 31, Murray was talking about Wes Anderson movies when he brought up โMoonrise Kingdom,โ which featured him and Willis.
โI got to work with, and have a wonderful time with, Bruce Willis. We should remember today. He just had a birthday. Bruce Willis is a good guy, a good f—— guy,โ Murray said.
Murray then spilled the beans about one of Willisโ early gigs.
โHe was a good friend and really always understood โ Bruce Willis was a page at NBC when I was on โSaturday Night Live.โ He was a page. And his job was to come and to refill โ this sounds like insane s—, but his job was to come and go to the dressing rooms and refill the M&M’s and pretzels kind of thing in the actorsโ rooms,โ he said.
โAnd I remember when I met him after he was already a successful guy, he said, โYou and (late former “SNL” star) Gilda (Radner) were nice to me.โ And I thought, โOK.โ I always thought, โOK, Iโm good with this guy.โ He was a good guy.โ
Murray and Willis would cross paths again long after Willisโ days of feeding actors on โSNLโ ended. In addition to โMoonrise Kingdom,โ the pair also starred in โRock the Casbah.โ
Willis, who turned 70 last month, would also return to โSNLโ in a much different capacity after his career took off, hosting the show in 1989 and 2013.
He has kept a lower profile in recent years after his health took center stage. His family announced in 2022 he had been diagnosed with aphasia, and in 2023, they shared his condition progressed to frontotemporal dementia. The neurodegenerative disease, also known as FTD, usually initially affects communication and behavior, instead of memory, which can be impacted later on, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
In December, Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, paid tribute to him on their anniversary, while acknowledging the hardships they face.
โ17 years of us โค๏ธ,โ she wrote on Instagram.
โAnniversaries used to bring excitement โ now, if Iโm honest, they stir up all the feelings, leaving a heaviness in my heart and a pit in my stomach. I give myself 30 minutes to sit in the โwhy him, why us,โ to feel the anger and grief. Then I shake it off and return to what is. And what isโฆ is unconditional love. I feel blessed to know it, and itโs because of him. Iโd do it all over again and again in a heartbeat ๐.โ
