'Mercury Rising' shows Willis' softer side

"Mercury Rising" Clip from the film: 19 sec./706 QuckTime movie Complete theatrical trailer: 2min QuickTime movie

April 2, 1998
Web posted at: 7:39 p.m. EST (0039 GMT) From Correspondent Ron Tank

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Bruce Willis' latest role is not uncharted territory, but it does have a new element: tenderness. He plays a cynical, outcast FBI agent who, while protecting a 9-year-old autistic boy, manages to end up on top of a high rise.

But "Mercury Rising" is not just another "Die Hard" clone, the actor insists. "I find them (the 'Die Hard' movies) a little boring these days. I've just done too many of them and so I seek out films that are more like 'Mercury Rising,'" he said.

The movie casts Willis as Agent Art Jeffries, who breaks ranks to protect an autistic savant (Miko Hughes) after the child inadvertently deciphers a top secret government code. In the course of dodging would-be assassins, Jeffries and the boy form a special bond.

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"I find them (the 'Die Hard' movies) a little boring these days. I've just done too many of them ..."
-- Bruce Willis

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This softer side of Willis is a bit out of the ordinary, compared to the usual tough characters he plays. Producer Brian Grazer openly acknowledged that he chose Willis for the part for his box-office draw -- with him in the opening credits, "people will show up," he said.

Besides Willis' box office appeal, Grazer said Willis was right for the part because of his real-life role as a dad. "To do that you have to be very sensitive," he said.

Hughes

For Willis, one of the movie's biggest draws was the casting of Hughes. At 12, Hughes is a veteran actor. He was 2 when he debuted in "Pet Semetery." He has also worked opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop," Danny DeVito in "Jack the Bear" and Tom Hanks in "Apollo 13."

However, Hughes' role in "Mercury Rising" is his most challenging, he says, because of his character's autism. "It's like juggling. It's kind of easy doing three (symptoms of autism) but then, it gets hard adding four, five and six. It's kind of easy doing the walk, the talk and the posture but then, (there was) the look, how to scream right," he said.

"With most of his acting tools taken away, he speaks very little in the film," Willis said. "He had to convey a lot of what's going on for himself, for his character, silently, which would be a difficult task for an adult actor."

Related Site:

• Official "Mercury Rising" Site

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