Bruce is back in action

Box-office legend Willis on his return to the big screen in Red 2.

“My favourite part of making films,” confides Bruce Willis, “is the actual day-to-day process of getting in front of the camera.

“It’s trying to make it seem lifelike, trying to make it funny, trying to make it look authentic.”

What he doesn’t say, of course, is that his least favourite part of the film business is the one we’re engaged in now talking about it afterwards.

So when I meet him, on a specially-organised boat trip up the River Thames to talk about his new blockbuster Red 2, I’m slightly apprehensive.

After all, the Die Hard legend one of the biggest box-office stars ever, with a slew of movies that have grossed a total of more than £1.6 billion has form when it comes to making conversations, er, hard.

His notorious appearance on The One Show earlier this year when he bemused presenters Alex Jones and Matt Baker by mumbling his way through their interview was a perfect example.

And on a radio show with Red 2 co-star Mary Louise Parker this week, he clearly struggled to muster any enthusiasm at all for the promotional process.

“All of this publicity is a part of films,” he tells me as the boat slips its moorings on London’s Embankment Pier and heads towards the Houses of Parliament. “It’s the sales, it’s the explanation of how we made the movie and what we do.”

His aversion to being interviewed established, where better to start our chat than the reason we’re messing about on the river? Having enjoyed a 30-year career in action movies, Bruce found a new angle for the genre with 2010 hit Red.

Also starring John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox and Morgan Freeman, Red focused on a group of former black-ops agents who have their peaceful retirement shattered by a politician with a grudge.

The sight of Mirren firing a sub-machine gun so soon after picking up an Oscar for The Queen was something to behold for audiences and enough came to see it to guarantee a sequel.

“When we did the first film it was very ambitious,” says Bruce, who reprises his role as ex-CIA gunslinger Frank Moses in the new movie.

“They tried to make a film that had romance, action and comedy all in the same film.

“I always thought that one part of it was going to have to be kicked out, but it all stayed in.

“So this time the writers just added more romance, more action and more comedy.”

Red 2 sees Frank lured back into action because he fears he’s not exciting enough for his partner Sarah (played by Parker). Back in the midst of the old gang though Morgan Freeman isn’t joining them this time around since his character was killed off in the first movie Frank finds himself with a price on his head and a mystery to solve.

Hidden beneath the streets of Moscow is a nuclear device that could change the balance of world power if it falls into the wrong hands. Along the way Frank encounters a beautiful Russian spy played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and a mad professor, alias Silence Of The Lambs star Anthony Hopkins. But the dynamics that made the first film such a success are all present and correct.

“When we all got back together I think it had been a year and a half in between it was as if we had just seen each other the day before,” explains Bruce. “All we try to do all day long is make each other laugh and hopefully that gets onto the screen, and you’ll find some of it funny as well.”

One way of making Bruce happy is to have his family close at hand. The 58-year-old has three daughters from his marriage to Demi Moore, which came to an end in 2000, and a one-year-old daughter, Mabel, from his 2009 marriage to British model Emma

Heming, 23 years his junior.

And while he’s not always keen on talking about movies, Bruce does get very animated when talking about fatherhood.

“I’m fortunate that I have a job where I get to bring my family along with me when I travel,” he says. “I’d be impossibly unbearable for anyone I was working with if I didn’t have my family with me. I’d just be moaning all day.

“On Red 2, I got to go back at the end of each day and spend time with my little baby. I don’t think there’s anything more important.”

With that, we pull in beside the pier at the Savoy and, having said all he wants to about this movie, Bruce bids farewell and disembarks.