Die Hard: Every Actor Who Almost Played John McClane
Bruce Willis was perfect casting for John McClane, but he was far from the first choice. Here are the actors who nearly landed the lead in Die Hard.
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It’s hard to imagine Die Hard without Bruce Willis in the lead role of John McClane, but there were several other actors who almost played the role. Die Hard endeavored to set itself apart from concurrent action films in a number of ways, with the biggest being its depiction of a hero who was, in many ways, just a normal guy. Finding the perfect actor to portray this unconventional hero meant defying many of the action-hero casting traditions of the time. As a result, when Willis was ultimately cast, many predicted doom for the in-production film.
At the time, Willis was best known for his lead role in the comedy/drama television series Moonlighting. However, his character was a far cry from the buff, gun-toting, seemingly invincible action stars of the 1980s. Ultimately, Willis’ everyman persona landed him the role, as McClane was envisioned as a regular, hard-working cop who found himself pitted against larger-than-life characters like Hans Gruber and the delightfully scummy Harry Ellis. The end result was a film that surprised audiences and critics alike, and Die Hard remains one of the most celebrated action films of all time.
However, Willis didn’t land the role overnight. Far from being the first choice to lead the unconventional action film, Willis’ casting in Die Hard followed on the heels of other considered actors, many of whom were offered the role and turned it down. Nevertheless, throughout a multi-year process that involved script revisions, changing ideas, and a creative team determined to buck traditional action-hero tropes, a surprisingly large number of actors came close to becoming John McClane.
The origins of Die Hard can be traced back to the publication of the novel The Detective in 1966. Two years later, in 1968, the book was adapted into a movie starring Frank Sinatra. Years later, 20th Century Fox began preparations to produce a film adaptation of the book’s sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever and were contractually obligated to offer the lead role to the then 70-year-old Sinatra. Unsurprisingly, Sinatra turned the role down, and Fox began retooling the script into an original movie called Die Hard.
As originally written, the character of John McClane was more of a traditional 1980s action hero. So naturally, one of the first actors to be courted for the role was Arnold Schwarzenegger. But as with Sinatra, Schwarzenegger turned the role down. The next actor to refuse the role was Mel Gibson, who almost immediately afterward accepted the part of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon. This was soon followed by a refusal from another of the 80’s biggest action superstars: Sylvester Stallone.
After this, the producers of Die Hard began to scramble in a desperate search for the perfect lead. With so many refusals under their belts and production moving forward, they needed the perfect John McClane, and they needed him fast. A lengthy list of potential actors was assembled, but whether or not any of these performers were offered the role is unclear. This list included action/adventure icons like Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, and Burt Reynolds. Before the script was stripped of its darker elements, actors like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were also considered. Even Kurt Russell, Snake Plissken himself, was seen as a strong option. Eventually, however, Die Hard’s director John McTiernan found his perfect everyman in the form of Bruce Willis. Despite the controversy surrounding his casting, the decision would go down as one of the best in action-movie history.
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