Kevin Smith Opened Up About The ’80s Action Star Who Showed Him True Darkness

One can only imagine that Smith has seen it all over the course of his career. The director has collaborated with a host of famous actors since his debut Clerks came out in 1994. Take Hollywood star Ben Affleck, for instance. He’s popped up in no less than seven of Smith’s films, including Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Jersey Girl. Quite the run, right?

Matt Damon has appeared in a few of those movies, too, with 1999’s Dogma proving to be a stand-out. In fact, that film had an all-round great cast, with the likes of Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, and Salma Hayek also lending their talents to Smith. Clearly, the director had no trouble in recruiting A-list talent.

Then again, you can’t help but wonder: could any of these people be the troublesome star who we referred to earlier? Well, as it turns out, none of those actors was the individual Smith was referring to. To give you a clue, though, the person in question is also a legend of the industry.

Given the passion Smith has for the world of film, it was tough to hear how bad this particular spell was for him. Sure, directors don’t always have it easy behind the cameras, and the last thing you’d want is for an actor to have no respect for your artistic choices — which is exactly what happened to Smith.

Luckily, though, Smith doesn’t just confine his talents to the director’s chair. He’s also got lots of writing credits to his name, for example. And these range from his own movies to television episodes. Plus, the Hollywood helmer has penned a few comic books as well.

Smith was responsible for the hugely popular Daredevil story Guardian Devil, highlighting his understanding of the medium. The positive response to his work even encouraged a few different famous faces to dive into the world of comic books, too. Joss Whedon was apparently one of them.

Mind you, Smith didn’t always crank out hits. For instance, Batman: The Widening Gyre is seen as a real low point, as Smith’s love of marijuana actually bled into the story. And Screen Rant even reported that the director had no recollection of penning that book, either. Hey, they can’t all be winners!

Speaking of winners — or almost winners, we should say — Smith also came very close to penning a massive comic book movie that would’ve changed his career forever. The film in question was Superman Lives, which is one of Hollywood’s most infamous disasters. If you don’t know the story, we’ve got you covered here. It’s a doozy.

In the mid-1990s, Smith received a screenplay that required a lot of work. And we mean a lot. After examining it, he delivered a vicious review of the contents. Incredibly, those savage words then prompted the studio to hire him as Superman Lives’ new writer.

Yet nothing could prepare Smith for what happened next. Before he got started on the new script, the producer of the project spoke to him. This was Jon Peters, who used to ply his trade as a hairdresser. Remember that detail. Why? Well, the Clerks director shared the conversation they had.

According to the Screen Rant website, Peters told Smith, “You know why you and me are gonna do a good job on Superman? Cuz you an’ me, we get Superman? Cuz... we’re from the streets.” Cringe! And to add to that awkward exchange, Smith was handed some strange instructions regarding the screenplay.

Speaking at a Q&A that featured on the DVD release An Evening With Kevin Smith, Smith recalled Peters saying, “One, I don’t wanna see [Superman] in that suit. Two, I don’t wanna see him fly. And three, he’s gotta fight a giant spider in the third act.” Don’t forget about that last point.

So, Smith tried to follow Peters’ instructions. But when Tim Burton came on board to direct the movie, the quirky filmmaker kicked Smith off as the writer. That subsequently sparked a feud between the pair, though it obviously wouldn’t be Smith’s only celebrity squabble. As for Superman Lives, it never got made in the end.

Smith moved on after that, ahead of a funny moment at the cinema. As he said on the DVD, “I went and saw a movie that Jon Peters had produced, called the Wild Wild West. So I’m sitting in the theater watching the movie, and I’m like, ‘Good lord, this is [awful].’ But then, all of a sudden, like, a giant spider shows up.” So Peters got his wish... sort of!

Anyway, as we mentioned, Smith is a jack-of-all-trades kinda guy. Yep, he’s pretty good in front of the camera as well as behind it. He made his on-screen debut in his first directorial effort, taking on the character of Silent Bob in Clerks. The Hollywood star would go on to reprise that role in several other projects across the years.

Yet Smith did eventually branch out into different roles as time went on. His first television appearance came in an episode of Law & Order back in 2000, before he briefly featured in Veronica Mars some five years later. As for his film work, the actor also popped up in stuff like Daredevil and Southland Tales during that spell.

And if that wasn’t enough, Smith has tried his hand at voice acting, too. Yep, he’s featured in projects such as TMNT, Superman: Doomsday, Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery, and The Simpsons. That’s quite a range, wouldn’t you agree? To say he’s been adventurous with his talents is an understatement.

Then again, we haven’t touched on one of Smith’s most surprising roles as an actor. You see, in 2007 he played a supporting part in the action blockbuster Live Free or Die Hard. Sure, he was kind of the comic relief, but still. Who could’ve seen that coming when he first appeared as Silent Bob 13 years earlier?

Unsurprisingly, Smith was stoked. Yet one thing in particular excited him above all else. Taking to MySpace at the time, he wrote, “I reported to work on a flick that’d reveal an unrealized dream I’d unwittingly harbored since I first watched David Addison limbo in the Moonlighting Detective Agency offices, 20 years prior. For five days, I acted opposite Bruce Willis.”

To add to that, Smith was then blindsided by a suggestion from Willis that really blew his mind. As he noted in a documentary titled Kevin Smith: Sold Out – A Threevening with Kevin Smith, “[Willis said], ‘Let [me] ask you something – you’re from Jersey, I’m from Jersey. You write, direct; I act. We should do something together.”

We can only imagine how thrilled Smith must’ve felt at that stage. Getting the chance to helm a movie with one of your favorite actors? Not everyone in Hollywood can say that. Mind you, that dream soon turned into an absolute nightmare. Yes, Willis proved to be that troublesome figure who we hinted at earlier.

So, that brings us to 2010’s Cop Out. Smith sat in the director’s chair, with Willis and Tracy Morgan taking on the lead roles. The film was a comedic throwback to buddy-cop movies of the past, yet it didn’t fare well critically. Overall, the action-comedy earned a rating of 31 out of 100 on Metascore. Ouch.

The disappointing reception wasn’t the only thing that hurt Smith, though. The director had issues with Willis on set. And he detailed what happened in a chunk of his 2021 book, Kevin Smith’s Secret Stash: The Definitive Visual History.

Smith wrote, “Cop Out could have been a great experience if it weren’t for the fact that I met true darkness in Bruce Willis. I love making movies and he does not, at all. If he had fired me, I wouldn’t have cared.” Talk about piercing words. And it’s not the first time he’s criticized Willis since the movie came out, either.

During an appearance on a podcast with Marc Maron, Smith shed some light on Willis’ conduct across the shoot. He recalled, “I was going at it like, ‘Bruce, do it like this.’ I was directing Bruce the way I direct everybody else. And Bruce was like, ‘I’ve been acting like Bruce Willis for 25 years, do you really think there’s anything you’re going to tell me that I don’t know?’”

Tensions between the pair got so bad that Smith claimed a fight nearly broke out. Yep, while speaking on a 2012 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the director stated that Willis took offense to a sarcastic barb from his end. Then, the action icon apparently said, “Do you want to take a swing at me?”

Ultimately, Smith walked away and took his fury out on one of the walls in his trailer, leaving a trio of fist imprints! But as miserable as the Cop Out shoot appeared to be, the versatile star doesn’t look back on it in frustration. If anything, it brings about feelings of sadness in him.

Smith told Maron’s podcast, “It was difficult. I’ve never been involved in a situation like that where one component is not in the box at all. It was soul-crushing. I mean, a lot of people are gonna be like, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to blame the movie on [Willis].’ No, but I had no help from this dude whatsoever.”

We can feel Smith’s pain. As it turns out, though, he’s not the only person who’s had problems with Willis in the last few years. The Hollywood star has apparently rubbed a few more individuals up the wrong way, ranging from a fellow superstar to people in the media.

If you’re a fan of action cinema, then you’ve no doubt enjoyed The Expendables franchise, which stars an array of genre legends. Willis was in the first two movies, yet he didn’t appear in the third. Instead, Harrison Ford took his place. Why? Well, it’s said that money played a part in it.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Willis supposedly asked for $4 million to come back — even though he’d only be needed for four days. Wow! After that, Sylvester Stallone, the man behind the franchise, confirmed that Ford was stepping in for the Die Hard star, ahead of posting a strongly-worded message.

Taking to Twitter in August 2013, Stallone wrote, “Greedy and lazy... a sure formula for career failure.” It’s not a stretch to say that lots of people believed he was referring to Willis there, with outlets like Entertainment Weekly picking up on it. But over 12 months later, Sly practically confirmed it in another, less volatile tweet.

Yes, in November 2014 Stallone wrote, “[I] made up with BRUCE W. A stand-up guy, my mistake...” Quite a turnaround, wouldn’t you say? Not all Hollywood feuds get resolved like that. Then again, something tells us that the next batch of folks won’t be looking to bury the hatchet with Willis anytime soon.

You see, Willis took part in two very different interviews in the U.K. in 2013 — and both left fans of his cringing. The first was on The One Show that February, where he acted completely indifferently to the hosts’ questions. Not even one of Jon Peters’ giant spiders would’ve got him going that day!

Willis put it down to jet lag in the end, but people at home were far from impressed. Alex Jones, one of the presenters on the program, wasn’t too thrilled, either. Following the episode, she wrote on Twitter, “Bruce Willis has tired me out. It was a bit of a challenge, to say the least.”

Then, later that summer, Willis spoke to Magic FM’s Jamie Edwards in a toe-curling interview. On that occasion, the actor was incredibly hostile, knocking back each question with snide remarks. And to finish, he even said he’d like to be anywhere else, before adding, “You have some great questions here, Jamie. Great chat.”

Yikes! Talk about a bad run of guest spots. Plus, if 2013 wasn’t already packed full of incidents, Willis also responded to some of Smith’s criticisms during a chat with Time Out. The Hollywood star said, “Poor Kevin. He’s just a whiner, you know? We had some personal issues about how we approached work.”

Willis then added, “I don’t have an answer for [Smith]. I’m never going to call him out and lay him out in public. Sometimes you just don’t get along.” Well, that certainly shows that the frosty feelings are shared on both sides. At least Smith learned something from it, though.

As Smith noted in another one of his books from 2012, “[Willis] turned out to be the unhappiest, most bitter, and meanest emo [jerk] I ever met at any job I’ve held. And I worked at Domino’s. [He] changed everything for me, though. Because now I’ll never meet anybody. That was it. I’d rather like people from a distance.” The battle scars remain.

You’d think Willis would be a happy-go-lucky kinda guy. He’s got a fantastic career, and there doesn’t seem to be much trouble in his personal life, either. In fact, he’s openly admitted that he’s met the love of his life — despite having initially given up hope. After splitting with Demi Moore, he’d made peace with being a bachelor. But then that all changed...

He told W magazine in 2009 how quickly his perspective had shifted. He explained, “I never thought that being with someone else was the answer... Then I started hanging around Emma.” He wasn’t the only one who felt smitten right away.

In a joint interview, his future wife told People in December 2020 that she had immediately fallen for Willis, too. She said, “When we first met, I was surprised at how charming and how funny he was – and extremely handsome. That was my first thought of you.” He retorted, “I was already in love with her.”

The pair did have the odds stacked against them at the start of their courtship. For one thing, she was set to move to New York soon after their first date. Plus, they had a huge age gap – more than 20 years separated them. But they didn’t care, nor did their family members, including Willis’s ex-wife, Moore.

They were probably happy to see that he’d settled down. Before meeting his new love, you see, Willis had been on a bit of a dating spree. At one point, the Pulp Fiction actor had ties to actress Kim Cattrall; on another occasion, partygoers claimed he spent a night flirting with Lindsay Lohan in 2005. There were even whispers that he was seeing one-time Playboy Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal during 2007.

That same year, though, Willis would meet Emma Heming – and their relationship would be more than just a fling for tabloid fodder. Unlike many of Willis’s former flames, Heming wasn’t a famous face: unless, of course, you were familiar with the women who stomped down fashion runways in the 1990s and 2000s.

Heming got her start in the early 1990s, according to her blog. She wrote, “My mom entered me into a modeling competition in London called ‘The British Elle Supermodel,’ which I won.” That moment launched her into a long and glittering fashion career, walking runways in Milan, New York and Paris for brands such as Chanel, Dior, Victoria’s Secret and Valentino.

Heming also became a brand ambassador for Dior cosmetics and she starred in Redken and Clairol commercials, too. Posing for some of the fashion industry’s most famed photographers – Patrick Demarchelier and Annie Leibovitz included – added even more weight to her impressive fashion resume. Still, all of these glitzy moments and experiences didn’t bring her to her future movie-star husband.

No, Heming met her future husband, Willis, at the gym. Both of them worked with the same trainer – a fateful coincidence, as it turned out. The actor later told W magazine in 2009 that meeting the model changed his entire perspective on love very quickly. The truth was, he admitted, that he had been feeling lonely for quite some time.

Willis revealed, “I spent the last ten years single and for the most part, unhappy. In a dark place. I never thought that being with someone else was the answer. I would say, ‘I’m alone, but I’m not lonely.’ But I was just kidding myself. Then I started hanging around Emma, and on a day-to-day basis my life became much happier.” Does this explain why he’d get involved in so many Hollywood feuds over the years?

Heming, too, was surprised by how quickly she fell for Willis, she told W. When she met him, she hadn’t been looking for anything serious. She revealed, “I had never really dated. I’ve always been a relationship kind of person. But in that phase of my life I was like, you know what, maybe I’ll just date, see what it’s like. And I lasted one date.”

Heming and Willis didn’t meet at the most opportune moment – and not just because she had sworn off relationships. He told W, “We went on one date, on the Friday before Emma was getting ready to move back to New York, and then we fell mad crazy in love…” They forged such a strong connection so quickly, they said, because they had a lot in common.

From the outside, it might not have seemed like Heming and Willis had many similarities – a two-decade age gap separated them, for one thing. But the model revealed that they had similar life stories, which bonded them together. She said, “We’re self-made, we came from the same background, and we went to work and became self-sufficient.”

Although the connection was instant, Willis and Heming waited for two years to take things to the next level. In March 2009 they headed to their home in Turks & Caicos, and not just for a vacation. The pair had a very private wedding ceremony there, attended by their nearest and dearest: the action star’s daughters, his ex-wife Moore and her then-husband, Kutcher, included.

The Moore-Willis clan quickly welcomed Heming Willis – as she now became known – into the fold. She admitted to W that the thought of meeting her beau’s daughters had been daunting “because [she’d] never dated a man who had children…” Still, she said, “I’ve been really blessed because, from day one, it’s been comfortable and fun.”

Willis agreed, calling the five of them “a tribe.” And by all accounts he and Heming Willis were particularly in tune with one another. After their nuptials, they told W that they wanted to make their relationship their focal point in life. They didn’t want to spend weeks and months apart from each other, which was the Hollywood norm.

Heming Willis said, “The thought of him going away for three months to shoot a film: I’ve had relationships like that in the past, and it’s not stable. Where my first priority used to be work, it’s now my personal life.” As such, she decided to call time on her modeling career, choosing to instead take on business opportunities, such as creating and marketing a new range of household fragrances.

That worked for Willis, who confided to W that he felt a deeper connection to his new wife than he had done previously with any other partner. He explained, “I hear so many people in relationships say, ‘I just need a couple of days away, or even an hour away.’ But I don’t want to be away from Emma at all. It’s the most singular relationship I’ve ever had in my life.”

Eventually, though, Willis and Heming Willis wouldn’t be the only two members of the family to think about. Three years into their marriage, the pair welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Mabel Ray. At the time, a spokesman for the couple told People magazine that they were “overjoyed” with their new addition.

Two years and a month later, they had their second baby girl named Evelyn Penn. A public statement issued at the time revealed, “Mabel is delighted to have a baby sister.” And the fact that Willis now had five daughters wasn’t lost on his wife. Heming Willis tweeted afterward, “My husband is still the man of the house! Thank you for all the well wishes. We are all doing wonderfully.”

Ten years into their marriage, Willis and Heming Willis had so much to celebrate already. They also wanted their girls to see them re-commit their lives to one another. So, they had a vows renewal ceremony in April 2019 commemorating their decade together. The former model told Us Weekly magazine afterward, “It was really for [our daughters], to be able to be flower girls, for them to be a part of something that feels kind of monumental. Ten years felt like a big deal and something fun to celebrate.”

Also at the vows renewal was, of course, Willis’s ex-wife, Moore. Heming Willis told the magazine that she wouldn’t have had the ceremony without the actress there. She explained, “She welcomed me into her family like I welcomed her into ours. Again, I have so much respect for her.”

Nowadays, Willis and Heming Willis continue to maintain their tight bond with Moore and her three girls. They’re also raising Mabel and Evelyn far from the Hollywood spotlight, as the actor did with his first trio of daughters. Willis described their suburban New York abode to Elle Décor in 2017 as a place that’s “filled with joy and the laughter and chatter of little girls being themselves.”

As for the relationship Willis and Heming Willis share, she offered an explanation as to how the couple had made their union last for ten years – and counting. Her guess? It was all down to the fun they had together. The ex-model told Us Weekly, “I think we’ve always had a lot of respect for each other, which has really helped build a great foundation. He makes me laugh. He’s funny and he’s smart, and nuts, and always keeps me on my toes, so it’s fun.”