Stephen Colbert's Vicious Exchange With Bruce Willis Is One Of His Most Watched YouTube Interviews

Summary

• Bruce Willis' most controversial interview occurred during a press junket.
• Stephen Colbert's viral interview with Bruce Willis on The Late Show in 2015 gained attention.
• The fake argument and fight scene in Colbert's interview with Willis was a hit on YouTube.

As one of the most celebrated action movie stars of all time, Bruce Willis will go down in history as a Hollywood great. Remembered for starring in a slew of hit movies, fans couldn't wait to see Willis battle another action movie villain. What those fans likely never expected was to see Willis go up against someone like Stephen Colbert.

A celebrated TV star who is among one of the richest late-night talk show hosts, Colbert has interviewed many all-time greats. While many of those interviews have been memorable, viewers can't get enough of Colbert's viral interview with Bruce Willis.

What Is Bruce Willis' Most Controversial Interview?

In February 2023, Bruce Willis' loving family gave the movie star's millions of fans a major update on his life. Tragically for Willis and his loved ones, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

That diagnosis is important to note when looking at the most infamous interviews from Willis' career. The reason for that is Willis' mental state likely played a role in why one of the actor's interviews became so incredibly awkward.

In 2013, Willis was taking part in a press junket to promote his movie Red 2. During that process, Willis and his co-star Mary-Louise Parker were being interviewed by Jamie Edwards when things went completely awry.

During the opening seconds of the interview, Edwards' first question was met with sarcasm and hostility from Willis. From there, Willis went on to explain to the interviewer that taking part in press junkets is "sales" and not the fun part of being a movie star.

At this point, only a minute had gone by in the interview, and Edwards had almost no chance of recovery. To Edwards' credit, he tried his best to soldier on and get things back on track to no avail. Firstly, Edwards tried to respond to Willis by asking him how he would sell the film but the actor didn't engage.

When Edwards then told Willis "I love this film", Willis made it extremely obvious he didn't believe him. Seemingly in an effort to cut the tension, Parker chimed in and pitched Red 2 to viewers as Edwards had invited Willis to do.

For a total of five minutes, Edwards continued to ask questions and obviously did his best to be nice. Despite that, he never even seemed to come close to winning Willis over. To say the entire interview is painful to watch is an understatement.

Why Did Bruce Willis And Stephen Colbert's Interview Go Viral?

Since the year 2015, Stephen Colbert has been the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Before that, Colbert was a correspondent for The Daily Show between 1997 and 2005, and he hosted The Colbert Report from 2005 until 2014.

Aside from pointing out Colbert's impressive track record of success, there is another reason to list his filmography highlights. Looking at Colbert's three biggest TV jobs makes it abundantly clear that he has interviewed countless people.

Keeping in mind how many stars and politicians Colbert has interacted with, it is interesting to look at his most viewed interviews. A perfect example of that is a clip from an interview that Colbert conducted with Bruce Willis.

During the first year of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Bruce Willis appeared as a guest in December 2015. As Colbert and Willis' conversation continued, the two men began to discuss the stunts that make action movies possible.

While talking about action movies, Colbert brought up the fact that Tom Cruise has become known for performing his own stunts. From there, Colbert asked Willis if he liked doing his own stunts.

Without missing a beat, Willis stated he does like to perform stunts for his movies. Not only that, Willis seemed to imply that it would be ridiculous for anyone to question if he performed his own stunts. "Of course. You have to."

In response to Willis' claim, Colbert began to bring up infamous moments from the actor's filmography. "Really, like barefoot across the glass in Die Hard and all that kind of stuff?" Even with Colbert upping the ante, Willis continued to say he performs his own stunts.

When Colbert questioned Willis as to why he would possibly do painful stunts like that, the actor paid tribute to movie fans. "For the audience." Colbert then questioned if Willis possibly could still be doing his own stunts since he was sixty years old at that time.

Surprisingly, Willis then stated that he felt like he would be letting his fans down if he stopped doing his own stunts even at that age. Finally, things began to come to a head when Colbert remarked to Willis, "I don't believe you".

Up until this point in the conversation, some viewers may have thought Willis and Colbert's conversation was genuine. However, that had to change when the two men stood up like they were going to fight and the show cut to obvious stunt doubles.

From there, the stunt doubles began to fake fight. Some highlights of the following scene include someone getting dragged over Colbert's desk and the other double getting thrown head-first into drums. Finally, one of the doubles threw the other over a railing and then tried to dive on him landing on the stage instead.

Throughout these stunts, the scene would occasionally cut back to the real Colbert and Willis. When that would happen they would trade one-liners and Willis even pretended to spit out his own teeth. The punch line of the whole sequence was the real Willis admitting he doesn't do his own stunts.

Obviously, a scene that was meant to make people laugh, the fake argument and fight clearly delighted many people. On the other hand, it seems extremely obvious that many people would find the scene corny.

No matter what each individual thought, there is no doubt the video of the scene was wildly successful on YouTube. After all, the uploaded video has almost twenty-six million views on YouTube as of this writing.