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Thread: Bruce willis stepping away from acting because of Aphasia.

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    Dying paranoid101's Avatar
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    Bruce willis stepping away from acting because of Aphasia.

    This might explain some of the questions about Bruce's career of late, he's stepping away from acting because of Aphasia which leads to the loss of ability to understand or express speech. that's a real shame for him and his family.

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...nosis-12351224

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    Shit! That's nasty
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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    Not sure what caused it for him (e.g. brain injury, stroke), but I can certainly say that aphasia is pretty fucking terrible.

    It has been one of the side effects of my Dad's stroke a couple of years ago. If you speak too fast he can't take in the information properly, he struggles with finding the right words frequently - this in itself expresses itself in many different ways, such as: an unrelated word getting stuck in your head from a TV show or whatever, and then finds its way into a conversation in the place where a different word is supposed to be, mixing up words, mixing up past/present/future tense, repeating words etc.

    He's basically completely unable to use the telephone, which often puts him 'under pressure' to respond (and his hearing problems don't help either), so he'll very easily get jumbled with what he wants to say and how he wants to say it.

    He says that he knows what he means, but getting the signal from the brain of what is intended to be said, and then actually get it out accurately from one's mouth is where the issues lie. Neural pathways were burned out by the stroke, so speech therapy attempts to build new pathways and help the brain 're-learn' certain things, but there's only so much you can do.

    There's basically permanent brain damage, but speech therapy and the passage of time after the stroke did improve things - but only up to a point. In the first days after the stroke he could really only manage "yes", "no", and for some reason "usually" and "anyway". He's comparatively much better than that now, but equally compared to what he used to be like he, and us, have lost so much. He used to be well versed in debating issues and laying out complex and cogent arguments - hell, this is a man with a PhD - but he can do very little, if any, of that now.

    Sometimes he has to try and think of what he wants to say quite specifically and then try and get it out before the conversation naturally moves on. Processing instructions can be a problem, too, especially when he gets tired - indeed, tiredness makes all the speech and language problems much more pronounced.

    If there's no real distractions, if he can hear clearly, and he's not feeling 'under pressure', he's able to speak for himself sometimes - e.g. earlier this week I took him for his Covid spring booster, and in that setting he was able to answer his various details on his own. I was there just in case I had to step in, like I've had to do on other occasions at hospital in order to explain more complicated things as he's just not able to put the words together to fully get the point across, which is made worse when staff are rushing through questions, speaking indistinctly, oblivious to his need for hearing aids, and oblivious - despite warning - of his aphasia. So caring and understanding, eh?

    So, I can certainly see why Willis has had to give up acting as he wouldn't be able to accurately or even comprehensibly deliver his dialogue. Again, we don't know specifics such as how it has happened to him, nor to what degree, or if it could be part of some form of dementia even (and therefore progressive, rather than kind of all at once like with a stroke). When reading you'd be likely to replace or skip random words, and diction might also suffer.

    I wonder if this is perhaps progressive, and could that explain his slew of, essentially, 'pay cheque movies' in recent years - understandably 'making bank' while you still can to make sure your family is taken care of. He's certainly better off with having an extensive support network and assistants around him and plenty of cash to help out, because I can tell you it's a tough gig taking care of someone when you're trying to watch the purse strings and it's just two of you.

    Sad thing all round.

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    Webmaster Neil's Avatar
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    Nature can be f***ing cruel
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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    https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/concerns...034835253.html

    Seems filmmakers have been noticing a "decline" for the last few years, particularly on these flicks he's been cranking out recently.

    According to those who have worked with the elder Willis on his recent films, the actor has been exhibiting signs of decline in recent years. In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis' well-being.

    These individuals questioned whether the actor was fully aware of his surroundings on set, where he was often paid $2 million for two days of work, according to documents viewed by The Times. Filmmakers described heart-wrenching scenes as the beloved "Pulp Fiction" star grappled with his loss of mental acuity and an inability to remember his dialogue. An actor who traveled with Willis would feed the star his lines through an earpiece, known in the industry as an "earwig," according to several sources. Most action scenes, particularly those that involved choreographed gunfire, were filmed using a body double as a substitute for Willis.

    In one alleged incident two years ago on a Cincinnati set of the movie "Hard Kill," Willis unexpectedly fired a gun loaded with a blank on the wrong cue, according to two people familiar with the incident who were not authorized to comment. No one was injured. The film's producer disputed that the incident occurred, but the alleged discharge left actors and crew members shaken.

    Burns was one of a handful of people who knew Willis was struggling with his memory, but he said he was unaware of the severity of the actor's condition until June 2020, when he was directing his first film, "Out of Death." It was among 22 films Willis did in four years.

    "After the first day of working with Bruce, I could see it firsthand and I realized that there was a bigger issue at stake here and why I had been asked to shorten his lines," Burns said. On that film, Burns was tasked with compressing all of Willis' scenes — about 25 pages of dialogue — into one day of filming, which he said was exceedingly difficult. At the end of the day, Burns felt conflicted.

    Last fall, Burns was offered the chance to direct another Willis film, "Wrong Place," but he was worried about the actor's health.

    Burns said he called one of Willis' associates and asked him: "How's Bruce?" Burns said he was told that Willis was "a whole different person ... way better than last year." "I took him at his word," Burns said.

    But when they started filming the movie last October, "I didn't think he was better; I thought he was worse," Burns said. "After we finished, I said: 'I'm done. I'm not going to do any other Bruce Willis movies.' I am relieved that he is taking time off."
    "They stated that he was happy to be there, but that it would be best if we could finish shooting him by lunch and let him go early," Johnson recalled of the conversation. Filmmakers proceeded to quickly film the actor's parts, even as Willis questioned where he was: "I know why you're here, and I know why you're here, but why am I here?" two crew members said he asked aloud.

    "It was less of an annoyance and more like: 'How do we not make Bruce look bad?'" one of the crew members said. "Someone would give him a line and he didn't understand what it meant. He was just being puppeted."

    Johnson, the director, said he subsequently was offered the opportunity to film two additional movies with Willis, so he discussed the situation with his creative team.

    "After our experience on 'White Elephant,' it was decided as a team that we would not do another," Johnson said. "We are all Bruce Willis fans, and the arrangement felt wrong and ultimately a rather sad end to an incredible career, one that none of us felt comfortable with."
    In January 2020, actress Lala Kent, a star of Bravo's "Vanderpump Rules" reality show, was cast as the action hero's daughter in "Hard Kill." In one scene, Kent said, Willis’ character was scripted to step in and protect her from villains.

    “I’m supposed to think my life is about to end, and then my dad steps in to save the day,” Kent said, describing how her back was to Willis in the scene. Willis was meant to deliver a line that served as Kent’s cue to duck before he fired the weapon at a bad guy. Instead, he shot the gun before delivering the line — and the actress was unable to duck.

    “Because my back was to him, I wasn’t aware of what was happening behind me. But the first time, it was like, ‘No big deal, let’s reset,’” she said.

    Kent said she asked director Matt Eskandari to remind Willis to say his line before firing the gun.

    But on the second take, the same thing happened, Kent said. Eskandari did not respond to calls seeking comment, but a second crew member said he remembered Kent being shaken that day. A third crew member, who also was not authorized to comment publicly, said he recalled a situation in which Willis "did fire the gun on the wrong line.”

    But the crew member added: "We always made sure no one was in the line of fire when he was handling guns."

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    Webmaster Neil's Avatar
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    Oh FFS
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
    -Carl Sagan

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