Did You Know Bruce Willis Was Supposed to Star in ‘Ghost’?

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Bruce Willis, action hero of the century, known for delivering a perfect balance of hard-edge and waggish humor, has been the center of a myriad of epic franchises. From Die Hard to Sin City, from The Expendables to Detective Knight, and numerous classics like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, and Planet Terror, and The Fifth Element, and Twelve Monkeys… the list goes on. Obviously, the glass-smashing genre has certainly been his oyster. But there was one film he regretted saying “no” to: Ghost, starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze.

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Bruce Willis Spoke of His Regret While Speaking to Playboy, Not the New York Times

We haven’t seen much of Bruce Willis lately apart from discussions of his health, mostly initiated via his wife, Emma Heming’s social media. Last spring, the Unbreakable actor’s family made the announcement that he was suffering from Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), and as such could no longer continue his acting career, which spanned 43 years and nearly 150 films.

But if you dig deep, there’s a treasure trove of interviews with Bruce Willis over the years. One such goodie was with former New York Times and Playboy reporter David Sheff in 1996. The Bruce Willis interview, despite widely circulated media claims, was technically on behalf of Playboy, not The New York Times.

The conversation focused on shop talk for the most part. Sheff wanted to know what Willis’ draw to action films was (he likes playing the underdog), what he thought of his success (he knows he’s fortunate), and how he felt about his then-wife’s (Demi Moore) success, especially in a male-dominated industry. She’d just raked in a record salary of $12.5 million for Striptease, which also cemented her as a sex icon.

Willis Told Playboy Reporter David Sheff That He Couldn’t Understand How a Ghost Could Star in a Love Story

“She’s breaking a lot of barriers. It’s not a mystery,” said Willis. “You have to be able to deliver, and she does. She hits a home run out of the park each time. I think Ghost has made something like $550 million.”

Bruce Willis was having similar financial wins in the film industry, which he admitted led to being “more selective about projects.” Then Playboy asked if he’d ever turned down a movie that later turned out to be a box office hit. Indeed, he had.

“How about Ghost? Knucklehead Bruce Willis,” said the Paradise City star. “I just didn’t get it. I said, ‘Hey, the guy’s dead. How are you gonna have a romance?’ Famous last words. But I don’t regret it because it just doesn’t matter. It’s down the road, under the bridge.”

Willis Said Sex Scenes Are “Unsexy” and “Hard Work”

Willis also admitted he didn’t feel jealous of the sex scenes between Moore and Swayze, who was cast as Sam Wheat.

“I feel pretty secure with my wife and how we are with each other,” he said. Willis has also starred in his share of sex scenes, and he added that they are “hard work.”

“They are the most uncomfortable acting days you will ever experience,” Willis revealed. “You’re naked in front of 90 people with, most of the time, a woman you hardly know… Everybody is watching. You’re bare-ass naked. You’re sweating. Some guy says, ‘I can see your dick. Tuck your dick in.’… It’s very unsexy.”

He Starred in Another Film With Tom Hanks Instead: “One of the Crappiest Movies Ever Made”

While Bruce Willis’ former wife Demi Moore was busy filming Ghost, he opted for another film: The Bonfire of the Vanities. It was a box office flop, co-starring Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, and Melanie Griffith. Hanks would later tell Oprah it was “one of the crappiest movies ever made.”

Patrick Swayze Was a 10th Pick as Sam Wheat in Ghost

While Patrick Swayze ended up winning the jackpot of a role as Sam Wheat in Ghost, he wasn’t even a top pick. In 2020, Ghost’s casting director Janet Hirshenson told Metro UK that he was actually 10th in line.

“For Patrick’s part, the studio only wanted to make it with one of 10 box office actors,” said Hirshenson. “The 10th choice was Patrick, but Jerry Zucker didn’t want to cast him because he’d just seen Roadhouse and didn’t think he was right.”

Swayze’s first wife Lisa Niemi, who was married to him at the time, elaborated on what happened while speaking to Express UK last June. She said he’d already heard numerous actors had turned down the part of Sam Wheat and wouldn’t even look at the script. But she begged him to, and once he finally read it, he had “tears in his eyes.”

“I have to do this movie,” he told her.

Harrison Ford Turned Down the Role, Too

But he’d lost his chance — or so he thought. Zucker already had another A-lister in mind: Harrison Ford. According to Zucker, the Star Wars actor’s reaction to the script was similar to Bruce Willis’.

“They took him out to lunch, and he was very honest about it. He said: ‘Why are you making this? Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? It’s very weird,’” Zucker said.

Janet Hirshenson told Metro UK that Swayze had made up his mind and didn’t want to be a part of the movie, but they needed a good actor, so they devised a very sneaky plan.

“Jane [Jenkins, her casting partner] concocted a thing with Patrick’s agent, she made an appointment and Jerry went crazy,” said Hirshenson. “Jane and the agent planned it, so she called his agent and yelled at her, like “How dare you set this up?!” Then she [told Jerry], ‘I don’t know, he’s here… We’ve got to see him…’”

“So, he came in and she read with him. It was the producer and Jerry; they came in and did the reading,” she continued. “The producer was crying during the audition. At the end of the scene, Jerry Zucker jumped up and went, ‘Well that’s it!’”

And that’s how Patrick Swayze — not Bruce Willis, not Harrison Ford — ended up starring with Demi Moore in Ghost.

As a tip of the hat to playing a ghost with dramatic character development, Willis did end up with a similar role a couple years later. He played Malcolm Crowe, a ghost who doesn’t know he’s a ghost, in The Sixth Sense.

Read More: Bruce Willis Shares Secret to Raising Strong and Independent Daughters

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