Kevin Smith Comments On Not Being Invited To Bruce Willis Roast

Filmmaker and funnyman Kevin Smith has no qualms over not being invited to participate in the [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

Filmmaker and funnyman Kevin Smith has no qualms over not being invited to participate in the roast of Die Hard and Glass star Bruce Willis, who Smith directed in 2010 buddy cop action-comedy Cop Out.

"I have a hard time making fun of others (which is why I tend to turn inward and mock myself)," Smith wrote on Twitter Friday when asked about his non-participation.

"And honestly: even though I've worked with him twice, I'm way okay with not being invited to this Roast. But it does kinda feel like a... what's the term I'm looking for here? A cop out."

Smith first worked with Willis when he appeared alongside him in 2007's Live Free or Die Hard, where Smith played Frederick 'Warlock' Kaludis, a police-hating computer hacker.

Cop Out — one of the rare Smith-directed projects the filmmaker didn't pen himself — starred Willis and Tracy Morgan as NYPD detectives in pursuit of Willis' rare and valuable baseball card, which the single dad hoped to sell to pay for his daughter's looming wedding.

Smith and Willis famously clashed on set, with Smith recalling during a 2012 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno how he and the big-shot movie star "really kind of butted heads."

"I've been thinking about it for two years. This is the way I can finally sum it up. It goes like this. It was my fault," Smith said.

"I went in there expecting something. I went in there expecting the guy I've seen in the movies and on TV and whatnot. And I had never in all my career, I had never worked with a major movie star before. Please do not tell Ben Affleck that I said that. But he was a movie star, and I wasn't equipped to kind of deal with that person."

The director recounted how, after finishing a take, Willis waved Smith over, telling him they weren't finished. Smith joked, "'Okay everybody, hold on one second. I'm going to go talk to the director.'"

According to Smith, Willis said, "'What did you say?'" prompting Smith to explain it was a joke, only for Willis to then instruct him to clear the set.

In private, Willis asked Smith, "'Do you want to take a swing at me?'" Smith told Leno, joking he thought he was in a Die Hard movie.

Appearing on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast in 2011, Smith said his time working with Willis left him "beyond disappointed," saying the star was "one of the main reasons" he took on Cop Out.

"One guy wouldn't even sit for a f—king poster shoot. Everybody knows who it is. It ain't — let me put it this way," Smith said.

"Remember the really funny guy in the movie? It ain't him. He's a f—king dream. Tracy Morgan, I would lay down in traffic for the rest of my life for Tracy Morgan. Were it not for Tracy, I might have killed either myself or someone else in the making of f—king Cop Out."

"It was f—king soul-crushing," Smith explained of working with Willis. "A lot of people are like, 'You're just trying to blame the movie on him.' No. But look, I had no f—king help from this dude whatsoever."

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