Bruce Willis Describes His Red Cast as "The Yankees"
Posted 07.13.10 by Ryan
The upcoming Red boasts an impressive cast not unlike the upcoming The Expendables. Only, instead of The Expendables' action movie stars of the 1980s and 90s, Red has an Oscar-caliber cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, and Richard Dreyfuss. Outside of a large ensemble cast, the two movies also share Bruce Willis, who is only in one scene in The Expendables, but gets to work with almost the entire cast in Red where Willis plays an ex-CIA black ops agent who is being hunted down by other assassins and must protect the woman he loves (Mary-Louise Parker). Willis admitted to SuperHeroHype that he's "never been in a film with so many movie stars," and called his Red cast "the Yankees."
Everybody came in like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Derek, Babe Ruth — everybody steps up. Helen Mirren — bang. She's got a home run. Richard Dreyfuss — that ball is outta here. Grand slam home run taped up. Everybody that came in for a day or for a week or three days or two weeks, everybody hit it out of the park. Working with other actors who can hit the ball right back to you... you go, "I have to actually act now and think of something funny to say or do now."
Red began as a three-issue comic book by writer Warren Ellis and artist Cully Hamner, though the recently released teaser trailer showed a movie that is more of an action/comedy. Willis admitted his character does little in the way of comedy, leaving the laughs for the rest of the cast.
Mary-Louise Parker — hysterical. She's really funny in this. Comedy, yes. Romance, yes. Blood, action — no blood, action yes. I actually get shot in the arm and a little tiny bit of blood comes out. If you get shot in the arm in real life, you're arm comes off. It gets blown off.
Instead of jokes, Willis keeps to the action, including a fight scene with Karl Urban that Willis says uses "more mixed martial arts stuff than I've ever seen in a film," and if that isn't enough to lure an audience, Willis thinks another image might draw in a crowd.
Helen Mirren with a 50 caliber wearing a cocktail dress.
Next Showing: Red opens October 15