In the first three Die Hards, it seemed like John McClane was a reluctant hero who didn’t really want to be in this situation. In Live Free and Die Hard, it seems like he’s kind of embraced his role as the action hero.
No, that’s not the case. All through it I’m reluctant. Now I’m extra reluctant.
He really took charge in the shootout and just his reactions.
One of the things that a friend of ours said early on is - a kid named Jason Smilovic who wrote Lucky Number Slevin came up with the idea that the phrase ‘the mythology of Die Hard’ - and part of the mythology of Die Hard is that John McClane loves his country, loves his family, that he’s not going to let anybody hurt anyone that can’t really defend themselves. I think given a choice being able to not have to do what I do in this film or in any of the Die Hard films, I wouldn’t do it.
Your character is a very protective, if not overprotective, father and I’m just wondering for yourself if you can relate to that aspect of his personality?
I can relate to it but that’s just kind of overly dramatised in the film. My relationship with my daughters is a lot more upfront than that.
What we’ve done as parents is to try to send the girls out into the world with as much information about what those 16 and 18-year-old boys are thinking and 28-year-old boys and 52-year-olds boys are thinking and hopefully that’ll keep them safe.
But, yeah, it's just dramatised in the film and actually the character of Lucy McClane was not in the original draft of this film. It was an idea that kind of came to us as we went along and Mary Elizabeth Winstead really did a great job in this film and brought a lot of her own kind of McClanisms to the film and helps out in a way towards the end of the film that is both funny and is a McClanism.
Are you as involved in your own daughter's life?
No, not at all. I just tell them I want to meet them. That's the only thing that I ask for. I just give them that look, that little look, and you know what? I always put one of them in charge. If they bring a little group of guys over to the house, they have a pool party or whatever, I'll just say ‘Dude, what's your name?’ and he says, ‘Sinjin,’ and I say, ‘Sinjin, you’re in charge. If anything happens to one of my daughters, I’m coming to you first and then I'm going to kill all your friends right in front of you and you'll be last.’ Yeah, so Sinjin generally is…
How you hooked up with Len Wisemen, how he came to your attention?
I don't know. I can't really remember what I was doing last week so to answer a question about something that happened a year ago. I’m just kidding. I remember.
You know what? I just sat down with him and my daughter, Scout, actually told me that even before I met Len, before we sat down to talk about doing the film, my daughter, Scout, turned me on to Underworld and we sat up one night watching it and I thought it was great.
It just so happened that a couple weeks later Fox asked me to sit down with him and it was a pretty easy choice to make.
We both had similar ideas about and similar goals as to the kind of Die Hard we wanted to make. It's really easy to sit here and talk about the film now because it really did turn out great. The film rocks. It's actually one of my favourite Die Hards.
But we both wanted to make a - to stay away from the CG aspects which would have been a real easy thing to do with a film like this - to try to compete with every other CG film that's out this summer.
Why revisit something that was 12 years old before you even start?
That's a really good question. I could’ve very easily chosen to retire undefeated. I mean the first three Die Hards have earned somewhere around $1.3 billion in international revenues and DVD sales and all that.
But in retrospect, I was never really that … I was never as happy with the second and third one as I was with the first one and I always wanted to do one more and see if we could come close to the quality and the feel and just the level of drama and at the same time, I don't know, just the elements of the first film.
And the potential to fail was really high, was really great, and I can't tell you how good it feels to be sitting here talking about a film that I've already seen and know is really strong and really powerful and really satisfies me in a way that was something I set out to do, that I wanted to do.
And I'm a gambler by nature, you know. I'd rather take a risk than not. You guys have seen some of the risks that I've taken that didn't succeed.
So is this really the last Die Hard?
No, I don’t think so. I think that Fox is already talking about doing another one. I told them I would only do it if Len is involved. And Maggie Q.
And Justin of course, yeah, because we can't do it without Justin. It's been 12 years since Die Hard 3 and 21 years is the span of all four of them so you can see me when I’m 31 and you can see me when I'm 52. You guys will decide.
There are moments in the film where you see me getting up a little slower. And I do things that I probably shouldn't be doing.
But I am in much better shape in this one than I was in the third one, because I was supposed to be a kind of beat up, alcoholic cop in that one. I spent years researching that role, not the cop part.
DHNS