After he released 8 horrific and cheap movies last year, rumors were flying he had dementia. I’m not sure if Aphasia counts as a form of dementia, but the rumors are at least partly true. What was at least somewhat comical(his movies were terrible and he was barely in them) is now less funny. That company that churns out garbage “geezer teasers” was using a man with declining mental capabilities to make movies.
He had his own category at the Razzie’s this year and I think with a lot of the press/media picking up on the fact that he is making terrible straight-to-DVD/streaming movies, it was time for him and his family to reconsider if he should still be doing this.
Dementia/Alzheimer rumors have been flying due to his movies. He wears and ear-piece for lines and is barely in them. I can’t say the production company knew about his problems, but it feel exploitative now.
Having said this, rumors are also that he was paid $1-2 million for each movie and only had to work a few days. Not bad. For all we know, he was upfront with them about his problems and this helped him get some money before he reached a point-of-no-continue.
Aphasia is due to damage to one or several very specific parts of the brain and thus can have multiple causes. As the link states, the leading causes are strokes and trauma, although it can be caused by other things.
Due to the problems with communication people with aphasia are often assumed to have dementia or retardation or other impaired thinking but this is not always the case. My mother suffered from expressive aphasia after her stroke (she could understand speech, but not produce it on her own) but her thinking was not impaired, she just couldn’t communicate. Happily, with rehabilitation mom recovered sufficiently that on a good day you might not realize she had a problem at all.
Presumably, it is not the case with Mr. Willis that rehab will help him since I would imagine, if he’s trying to work, he would have tried to get some help for his condition. Perhaps he did and it worked for awhile, but perhaps no more. Sometimes aphasia is a progressive condition.
It should not be assumed that because Mr. Willis has aphasia he also has dementia. He might have that, too, but we have no way to know that right now. Nor do we know what is causing his aphasia, and whether or not it is related to any other problems he might be having right now.
The Red Letter Media guys just reviewed some of his movies in their videos and were commenting on the speculations of his mental health. They also speculated that he was making money while he still could.
I don’t blame Willis for doing that. Yes the movies were all terrible, his acting wasn’t his best, but he won’t be remembered for them. He’ll be remembered for Die Hard, 12 Monkeys, and the other better movies. At his best, he was an entertaining actor.
Inversely, a lot of people can get their movies funded if they get a name actor in it, and if people like Bruce Willis or Nicolas Cage are willing, that may be all the makers need to move forward. That’s a big reason why they appear in so much weird rubbish stuff.
They had a follow-up video addressing the rumors and emphasized that they would not criticize his films and performance if it was true, which we definitely did not know at the time.
I do wonder how long this has been a problem for Bruce. I remember reading an article a few years back about how Bruce Willis seemed to be out of touch. Like you’d ask him a question and get an answer that wasn’t really related to it. I’ve enjoyed quite a few of Bruce’s movies over the years, I even have a soft spot for The Hudson Hawk, and I’m sorry he’s unable to retire under better circumstances.
As far back as 2013, he began acting a bit more strange than normal. I think it was during the press tour for Red 2 or something. He was giving really strange and awkward interviews. People figured he was either tired, drunk(hung over?), or that he’s a really rude guy. It actually might have been one of those, but rumors actually kind of got started that he was “nuts” back then.
I guess in Hollywood, it is at least somewhat an open secret or widely spread rumor that Bruce was somewhat losing it, though I don’t think aphasia or dementia were known to be the case.
Did anyone watch the movie Glass, the sequel to Unbreakable and Split? I think that is probably his last major movie made by a big studio and real director. The day my wife and I saw it, I said, “Bruce is…barely in this.” It’s not technically true. He has screen time. But a lot of the time, he is just kind of there with very little reaction or any lines to give.
I loved tough guy Bruce in virtually all of his movies, and I’m sad that he is afflicted and leaving us as a performer. From what I read, the condition is due to brain damage in the area that governs speech, so it is irreversible and incurable.
I think I’ve seen statistics that say that Tom Hanks has the most movies in the average person’s favorites list but, back when I was a big movie buff, I believe that I determined that Willis was the most common actor in my collection.
So I would personally also say that he had (for a time) good taste in scripts as well.
Do we have any sense for whether Willis had any addictions that could have caused the damage? If not then I’d wonder if it was all the explosions and whatnot from filming action scenes, over the years?
I wonder if Aphasia is common among former stunt performers?
I came here to pretty much say the same thing. Actors and other allied personnel who have health insurance through the Screen Actors’ Guild must work a certain number of hours in a specified period of time to keep it. He’s now old enough to have Medicare, and may well have enough money saved up that paying for lifetime care will no longer be a concern.
(Factoid: Ian Ziering’s wife was pregnant back in the late 00s and he needed those hours to keep the family’s SAG insurance, so that’s why he agreed to portray Fin in the first “Sharknado” movie, thinking it would quickly be forgotten.)
I sometimes go to a meetup, and one of the other attendees is impossible to converse with because she has significant hearing loss, mainly due to her age, and her hearing aids must not be properly tuned, or the loss is too profound for them to do any good, so if you speak to her, the response will be TOTALLY unrelated to what you just said to her. She’s not the kind of person who would say nonsense in an attempt to be funny, or to insult people, either.
I had a mild bout with aphasia and I can tell you that it’s frightening to all of a sudden not be able to speak properly. It was a result of an ocular migraine, and passed fairly quickly, but it scared me enough to make a trip to the ER. An MRI didn’t reveal a TIA, but it did show that I had experienced a very small and unrelated stroke at some point that affected a remote part of my brain. I have not had another episode since then. I sympathize with Mr. Willis. Not being able to communicate when you are still mentally lucid must be terrible.
I’ve followed Bruce’s career since Moonlighting. He always had a fast talking, coolest guy in the room persona. I read that his career bartending gave him that assurance and confidence.
Very sad to learn of his aphasia. I hope he doesn’t get even worse.
I haven’t seen Bruce since The Expendables 1 and 2. I had wondered why he left that movie franchise after that.
