Bruce Willis Was Not First Choice For Die Hard

"Oh, I think I was the 50th choice! They went to everybody."

When you think of the movie series "Die Hard" you immediatedly think of Bruce Willis. But if certain movie producers had prevailed in getting their way, this would not be the case.

Bruce Willis opens up in an interview with Entertainment Weekly about how he wasn't the first and most obvious choice to play rugged John McCane. Everyone from Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger were ahead of him in line.

"All of those guys probably would have been great John McClanes. As it turns out, if you think about John McClane now, you can't imagine anybody doing it but me, right? The thing about the first film you have to understand is I was doing TV, I'd only been in L.A. for a couple of years, I was still really learning how to act, so most of what went into making John McClane from a character standpoint was the South Jersey Bruce Willis — that attitude and disrespect for authority, that gallows sense of humor, the reluctant hero. What I always say about John McClane is if he had the choice of someone else stepping up and doing what he had to do, he would let them do it. I remember right around that time, the script for Lethal Weapon came across my path and my girlfriend at the time read it and said it was way too violent. Thank God I didn't do that one! [Laughs]

Die Hard is one of the most successful franchises in movie history and frankly, I can't imagine any other actor playing the tough McCane. Bruce Willis will always "Die Hard" as far as I'm concerned.