According to the cast and crew of Game of Thrones, Bruce Willis tried to sabotage a key scene in an act of “yacht rage.”
James Hibberd’s upcoming Game of Thrones oral history book, Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, looks to be jam-packed with wonderful behind-the-scenes anecdotes, from the story of the show’s disastrous original pilot to an explanation of why the show cut Lady Stoneheart to remembrances of how awesome Diana Rigg (Olenna Tyrell) was on set.
And we’re still hearing new behind-the-scenes stories. The latest comes from The A.V. Club, which recounts the time Bruce Willis almost ruined the iconic scene where the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) and the Viper (Pedro Pascal) square off in mortal combat, squishy end and all.
Well, “almost ruined” may be stretching it. According to crew members, that scene was filmed in a Croatian amphitheater that overlooked a bunch of yachts. HBO made a deal with the owners of the yachts that they would back off a quarter mile so the boats wouldn’t be in the shot. “Everybody agreed to do it—except one person,” said director Alex Graves.
And who was that one person? According to multiple crew members, it was none other than Die Hard star Bruce Willis. “ circled trying to say, ‘Fuck you, I’m in your shot,’ a couple times and we were all laughing because we were aimed away from the water at that time anyway,” the crew remembers. They saw it as an act of “yacht rage.”
Still, executive producer Bernadette Caulfield said that they “never actually saw Bruce,” so it’s possible everyone was making assumptions. Still, they do seem pretty sure of themselves, and it’s definitely the better story if Bruce Willis was sailing back and forth trying to ruin the battle between the Mountain and the Viper, for how dare anyone tell him, star of Cop Out, where he can take his yacht.
Whatever really happened, the anti-Bruce Willis bias seems to have set in among the cast. In a 2019 interview with Variety, Kit Harington (Jon Snow) expressed admiration for what actors like Ben Whishaw and Benedict Cumberbatch had done with their careers, and knew who he definitely didn’t want to emulate. “I don’t want to be Bruce Willis and be an action hero.”
Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon officially comes out tomorrow, on October 6!
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