Frank Sinatra and Clint Eastwood could play John McClane.
Die Hard is based on Roderick Thorpe’s book Nothing Lasts Forever. One of the main differences of the film is that in the literary original, the protagonist visits his grown daughter, not his wife, on the skyscraper on Christmas Eve. And although the main character in the book is no more than 45, Frank Sinatra was initially called to play the role of policeman John McClane in the film adaptation. The artist, who was over 70 at that time, refused to participate in the project, not wanting to run barefoot around the skyscraper with a ready-made machine gun at such a venerable age.
Previously, Clint Eastwood, who owned the movie rights to the book for several years, dreamed of playing a brave cop who repels a group of terrorists. When he wasn’t working with the project, the role of McClain was offered to Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, and Robert De Niro—actors with a decidedly masculine role.
Bruce Willis, known at the time only for his television role as a charming detective from the TV series Moonlight Detective Agency, did not take on the role of a fearless action hero in the memory of many. The film’s director, John McTiernan, defended the candidacy of the actor, considering Willis’ potential to become a future action star.
The film’s promotional campaign nearly failed due to Willis’ reputation.
It was not easy to defend the election in Willis’ favor and in front of a large audience. Initially, the Die Hard promotional campaign was built around the actor figure, as he was already known to the audience in some way, at least on daily prime-time television. However, the decision had an unexpected effect: before the official premiere, many perceived the picture itself and the main role of Willis in it as a joke – it got to the point that during the screening of the trailer, movie theaters were filled with laughter. that is, people did not see the action hero in the actor.
As a result, the organizers decided to partially replay the advertising campaign – printed promotional materials lost Willis’ face, and a frame with a burning skyscraper was placed in vain.
The main villain role could be played by Sam Neill instead of Alan Rickman.
It could have been completely different if Hans Gruber, the leader of the terrorists, had been played not by Alan Rickman, but by Sam Neill, the future star of Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders. By the way, “Die Hard” for Rickman himself made his debut in a big movie – before that, the actor shone only in the theater.
On set, Rickman was tricked into giving a more lively reaction.
The scene of Gruber falling from a skyscraper was created with some deception of the main character. Rickman was very afraid of heights, but still trusted the director when he personally showed him the reliability of the security elements and described the upcoming process to the smallest detail. True, the director remained silent about the trick.
Directly during filming of the episode, McTiernan convinced the stunt coordinator to push the actor off the special pedestal when he said “one”, not “three”. Because of this, Rickman’s feelings turned out to be even more sincere.
The ballet dancer Alexander Godunov from the USSR starred in the film.
Gruber’s main assistant was played by Soviet ballet dancer Alexander Godunov, who fled the country in 1979 during a tour of the Bolshoi Theater in New York. It is noteworthy that Die Hard is not the only collaboration between Godunov and Willis. A few years later, they were cast in the North family comedy.
None of the German terrorists spoke German.
By the way, about the terrorists from the Gruber team – none of the actors were actually German and did not speak German normally. Directly on set, they joked by imitating the sound of the German language, and their gibberish was only translated into real German speech in post-production.
The scene where John climbed into the ventilation shaft and nearly fell occurred by chance.
The episode in which John McClain almost fell through the ventilation shafts was not written in the script and took place in the movie purely by chance. During rehearsal for the scene, the stuntman actually nearly fell and miraculously managed to hold his hands.
The director liked the scene so much for its tension and realism that it was deliberately decided to shoot the same and include it in the film.
Bruce Willis partially lost his hearing due to high-profile firearms and explosions
Of course, the most dangerous stunts for Willis were performed by professional stuntmen, but the actor himself did not sit idly by. She filmed herself in scenes where she had to run barefoot over shards of artificial glass, dodge blank bullets, and protect herself from large-scale staged explosions. As a result, Willis partially lost his hearing for a while, due to loud special effects that mimic machine-gun explosions and explosions.
Not without a movie
There’s a famous movie bug in “Die Hard” that no one sees until the movie is complete. In a special cassette screening for the bosses of the Fox movie company, director John McTiernan suddenly realized that there was no ambulance at the scene as the terrorists were getting out of the huge truck in the underground parking lot. But as the finale approaches, he suddenly finds himself inside the truck, and with his help, the rogue Theo, a computer expert from the Gruber gang, tries to escape.
Although McTiernan realized the mistake before the film’s wide release, it was too late to correct it. It turned out to be expensive to reshoot the arrival of the bandits, and cutting the final scene with a chase in an ambulance was impractical: it cost a lot of money and a few days of filming, and was pretty important to the plot. I had to leave everything as it was.