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What would ask Bruce Willis

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Sobieski Vodka 

Bruce Willis and Sobieski Vodka

Bruce Willis:

Making the world safe for

retirees and tipplers

Action man Bruce Willis can

 stop a terrorist and also serve a mean vodka martini

Published On Mon Oct 11 2010

 

Bruce Willis stars in RED, opening Friday.

HANDOUT By Peter Howell Movie Critic

When Bruce Willis isn't busy saving the world for you, he worries about

 the bacteria-laden sliced fruit in your drink.

 

"Tell the truth about limes!" he commands, in answer to a question

 about what advice he'd give a young bartender.

"Don't ever let them put a lime in anything you drink.

People's hands are all over them, all day."

Willis would normally fuss over a live grenade rather than a sliced

 citrus. But the actor, a former barkeep, has both movies

and booze on his mind.

He's come to Toronto one hot summer day for two reasons: to pitch

 RED, his new made-in-Hogtown comedy thriller, opening Friday and

also Sobieski Vodka, a Polish libation he has more than a passing

interest in.

"Great vodka. Simple. Easy to talk about," Willis says.

He loves Sobieski Vodka so much, he bought a small equity stake in

the firm. Willis also appears in a series of online comic

advertisements, bantering with Sobieski's president, Krzysztof

Trylinski.

The latter interest explains why this interview with Willis is taking place

in a back room of the Summerhill LCBO branch, where he's

surrounded both by LCBO officials and members of his entourage.

"See that guy over there with the long hair?" Willis says, a wry smile

crossing his lips. He points to a burly man hovering nearby, who could

make a dandy bodyguard.

"I tended bar with him. But that was 30 years ago. Now look at us.

Acting is better. Less drinking!"

Acting certainly seems to agree with Willis. At 55, he has smooth skin

that looks at least a decade younger, and he's sharply dressed in a

charcoal suit and tieless white shirt.

He's reached that point in life where he's a lot closer to retirement

than to the start of his career. It's not a leap for him to play RED's

Frank Moses, a retired CIA black-ops agent who rounds up his old

team when assassins come knocking.

RED, based on a comic book series, is actually an acronym meaning

"Retired, Extremely Dangerous." Still, the idea of Willis playing a

retired anything is difficult to conjure.

"I'm still whipping ass, though," Willis says.

"I wouldn't say I'm actually sitting on the front porch just yet. I think

it's funny in the film that it floats the idea of when we have to retire."

It's an idea his blue-chip RED co-stars also had to confront. Morgan

Freeman, 73, Helen Mirren, 65, and John Malkovich, 56, play the

other ex-CIA types obliged to unholster their guns to join Moses in

another mission.

The movie, directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan), also stars Karl

Urban, Mary Louise Parker, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfuss. The

twisting story and the bold-faced cast both appealed to Willis.

 

"It was an ambitious story. It could have just been a romantic

comedy. It could have just been an action movie ... But all those

things went into this film and a very unique thing happened about two

months before we actually started shooting.

 

"We got a cast that nobody ever expected we were going to get. And

just because people wanted to do it, they wanted to be in the film, I

think that's the most amazing thing about it."

 

Most of the filming took place in Toronto last winter, including a few

scenes inside the Toronto Star. Willis has made than a number of

movies in Canada, including the mobster comedies The Whole Nine

Yards and The Whole Ten Yards, shot in Montreal, and 16 Blocks and

RED, shot in Toronto.

 

He's been here so many times, he's almost a Canadian actor. And as

a bonus, his Canadian-made movies usually do good box office.

 

"Yeah, there's some kind of good luck charm here," Willis agrees.

 

"Although, were you here last January, this past January? Blistering,

wasn't it? One of the coldest winters I've ever seen."

 

He scoffs when told that last winter was actually mild by Toronto

standards. Environment Canada makes it official.

 

"Really? That's what they were trying to tell me, but let me tell you, I

saw people crying, it was so cold. Even the Canadian crew, and that

was a tough crew. But they were crying, too."

 

Bruce Willis, crying in his vodka over Canada's cold? But lest you think

he's gone soft, he's also lately been busting heads in The Expendables,

which teams him with tough guys like Sylvester Stone, Arnold

Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren.

 

He'd happy if both The Expendables and RED turned into franchises,

and he's bugged by people who think action movies are a no-brainer.

 

"Some people think acting is easy. But it's a different animal every

time, a different thing. How good is Dolph Lundgren in The

Expendables? You saw that film? Unbelievable, right? Great.

 

"I love that film. You might have seen me in it for about 60 seconds.

Briefly. That was fun. I want to be in the next one."

 

He admits, though, that he's getting tired of being viewed as just an

action hero, especially for the continuing Die Hard franchise.

 

"Everybody wants to try to fit you into a little category, so it makes it

easy for them to remember what you do and what you don't do. But

my life and my work has been really fun and rich.

 

"I got to do a lot of things and I get asked to try things. Some of

them work, some of them get more notice than other things I do. You

think I do a lot of action films because those are the films that seem

to make a little more noise than comedies or romances. But I get to

do a lot of different things, and I'm really happy with it."

 

Does this mean he's planning to retired soon from action movies?

 

"Not yet! I think I could save the world five or six more times, and

then I'm going to hand it over to Jason Statham."

 

 

 

Never heard of a truth booth? Well, it's a little black room that people

step into (one at a time or as a group) and answer a series of

questions with all the honesty they can muster. Are these people

being totally truthful in the booth? We like to think so - but check out

these videos and decide for yourself. Where can you find a truth

Booth? At Sobieski's truth parties in select cities across the country.