Bruce Willis Reportedly Misfired Prop Guns on Set, Struggled to Remember Lines Prior to Aphasia Announcement

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Bruce Willis reportedly displayed signs of cognitive decline on movie sets prior to the news he has been diagnosed with language disorder aphasia.

On Wednesday, Willis’ daughter Rumer Willis shared an Instagram post revealing that her father was stepping away from acting after being diagnosed with Aphasia.

“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” read the caption. “As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”

Following news of Willis’ aphasia diagnosis — which largely impairs one’s communication skills — directors, producers, and former co-stars who worked with the actor have recalled concerns they recently had while working with him on set.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, directors Mike Burns, who worked with Willis in Out of Death, and Jesse V. Johnson, who helmed White Elephant, said that the actor’s lines had to be reduced as he struggled to remember them.

The films mark two of 22 that Willis did in four years.

Willis also allegedly had a hard time understanding why he was even on set to begin with.

“It looks like we need to knock down Bruce’s page count by about 5 pages,” Burns wrote in a June 2020 email to the film’s screenwriter, obtained by the LA Times. “We also need to abbreviate his dialogue a bit so that there are no monologues, etc.”

Burns told the LA Times that he was asked to shorten Willis’ lines, adding that he recognized the actor’s cognitive issues firsthand while working with him on set, adding, “I realized that there was a bigger issue at stake here.”

“I didn’t think he was better; I thought he was worse,” Burns said of a movie he made with Willis in October. “After we finished, I said: ‘I’m done. I’m not going to do any other Bruce Willis movies.’ I am relieved that he is taking time off.”

One crew member who worked with Willis on White Elephant claimed, “Someone would give him a line and he didn’t understand what it meant. He was just being puppeted.”

“After our experience on White Elephant, it was decided as a team that we would not do another,” director Johnson said. “We are all Bruce Willis fans, and the arrangement felt wrong and ultimately a rather sad end to an incredible career, one that none of us felt comfortable with.”

“He just looked so lost, and he would say, ‘I’ll do my best.’ He always tried his best,” Terri Martin, the production supervisor on White Elephant, added. “He is one of the all-time greats, and I have the utmost admiration and respect for his body of work, but it was time for him to retire.”

In January 2020, Willis worked with actress Lala Kent, also a star of Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules, reportedly firing a prop gun on the wrong cue.

Kent played Willis’ daughter in Hard Kill, and in one scene, his character comes up behind Kent’s in order to protect her from a villain.

“I’m supposed to think my life is about to end, and then my dad steps in to save the day,” Kent told the LA Times, adding that her back was turned to Willis.

Willis was meant to deliver a line, prompting Kent to duck, before firing a weapon at the villain. Instead, the actor reportedly shot the gun before delivering his line, and Kent was unable to duck.

Willis reportedly did the same thing on the second take, despite the fact that director Matt Eskandari had just reminded him to say the line prior to firing the gun.

While Eskandari did not respond to the LA Times’ request for comment, one crew member recalled seeing Kent “being shaken that day,” while another said he remembered an incident in which Willis “did fire the gun on the wrong line.”

“We always made sure no one was in the line of fire when he was handling guns,” the crew member added.

Randall Emmett, co-founder of Emmett/Furla Oasis and Kent’s former fiance, however, disputed that Willis fired a gun prematurely while the armorer also denied the incident.