Die Hard isn't exactly a feel-good, family-friendly flick, but Bruce Willis brought a levity to set that Jan de Bont hasn't forgotten.
Thirty-five years after the film helped launch Willis to fame as a bona fide action star, de Bont — who directed thrilling films like Speed (1994) and Twister (1996) after he served as cinematographer on Die Hard — appeared on the A Cinematic Christmas Journey podcast's season 2 finale to chat with co-host Peter Billingsley (of A Christmas Story fame) about its lasting impact.
That included major praise for Willis, 68, who was "perfect" to bring something new to the table that added depth to the genre.
"[Director] John McTiernan and Jan had just felt it had become these invincible guys against the faceless enemy, and they'd mow through them, or they were boilerplate terrorists, but the genre got a bit stale and they really wanted to create that everyman," Billingsley, 52, tells PEOPLE.
"Bruce was perfect for that because he was just so warm and funny," the former child star adds.
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Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988). 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/ShutterstockAccording to Billingsley, de Bont focused a lot on "finding those comedic moments," noting that how he approached shooting Die Hard was "very different for an action movie."
"He said he hid lights when they were building and creating all the sets on the floors, he just hid lights everywhere so he could turn them on," the Christmas with the Campbells producer explains.
He continues, "So he could say to Bruce, 'You can go wherever you want. You can walk wherever you want to, and I can photograph you,' which is not common, especially in an action movie. Because you would really map it out — everyone knows where you're going to walk, what the shot is, but they shot it a little more like an indie comedy. Like, walk in the space and find the scene and find the moment."
Billingsley says Willis "really, really embraced that" technique on Die Hard, according to de Bont.
"He said it took a couple days, because [Bruce] was very used to working on Moonlighting, which was a more structured TV show," he adds. "[Bruce was] like, 'Wait, I can just kind of do whatever I want?' And [Jan was] like, 'Yeah, whatever you want, and I'll find you, and just find the life in the moment.' "
Billingsley says de Bont told him he "broke a few takes by laughing because Bruce was so funny," adding that the crew wrote much of the dialogue during the shooting process.
"That famous one in the elevator shaft, [where] Bruce says, 'Come up to the coast, we'll have some laughs.' They were on a cell phone and the writer was calling up different versions of that line," Billingsley says. "They shot like five or six of them, a few of which made Jan laugh and ruin the takes, and then that was the one that they went with."
"It's fun, and I think people, especially [with] Christmas movies, love revisiting them. And especially seeing how much they've connected with audiences, they enjoy the process of reliving that movie as well," he adds.
The first two seasons of the A Cinematic Christmas Journey podcast are now streaming on Spotify.
