Bruce Willis interview

Bruce breaks the mould

Every screen action star wants to be taken seriously as an actor, but in reality few get the chance. Bruce Willis is one of the exceptions. The star of the Die Hard series has a lot to thank The Sixth Sense for. The drama about a little boy who could see the dead was a huge worldwide hit. So the 46-year-old actor had no qualms about signing up for Manoj Night, director Shyamalan's follow-up project and agreed to do Unbreakable even before the script was started.

Certainly Disney hope the Indian-American writer and director has come up with another paranormal hit. This time Willis plays a survivor of a train crash who finds out he's one of the Unbreakable - people who are saved from disasters to serve some higher purpose.

There is a lot of expectation for Unbreakable because of the success of The Sixth Sense, admits Willis. "We're feeling a responsibility to all those people who loves the first film and have been anticipating this one," he says. But it makes a nice change that he's not expected to be an action hero again. It's a genre Willis is decidedly bored with now.

"It's great not to have to run down the street with a gun in my hand," he jokes. "After I did the first Die Hard I said I'd never do another, same after I did the second one and the third. The whole genre was running itself into the ground."

He's admits he's lost his enthusiasm for doing those kinds of films and says: "I'm bored with them, I'm waiting for the genre to reinvent itself.

"I think I'm at a time in my career and place in my life when I'm far more interested in the acting side, than in playing guys saving the world."

It's interesting that kids seem to pop up in several of Willis's recent movies. In The Kid he was a middle-aged man replaced with the child he was at 10 while in The Sixth Sense he was a sympathetic child psychologist dealing with an unusual boy.

A bit of a kid himself, with his trademark smirk and wisecracking bravado, Willis believes he understands children and has three daughters by his former wife, actress Demi Moore.

"I think I know how their minds work. I have compassion and empathy and most of all sympathy for them," he smiles.

What Willis is less enamoured with is public intrusion into his private life. During his break-up from Moore, the actor found himself hounded by the press all wanting to dish the dirt on the split.