You saw these more regular guys who weren't always in the gym bodybuilding become the new wave of action heroes. In the wake of "Die Hard," you saw all of these films where the heroes suddenly were more vulnerable. They just wouldn't have gone near that role. You know, there's a scene in "Die Hard" where he cries, which is unimaginable for a Schwarzenegger or Stallone at the time. It kind of opened up the action genre when that became a big success because he was playing a character who was not only kind of relatable in physique but also vulnerable. He was, like, kind of a regular looking guy, more or less. It's hard to get out your head once you hear it. UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) Golden wine cooler.ĭE SEMLYEN: It's a great ad. WILLIS: (Singing) Seagram's golden wine cooler. (Singing) Seagram's golden wine cooler, it's wet, and it's dry. He was, you know, a guy who had a deal with Seagram's wine coolers. That was kind of - the thing that was seen as a weakness at the time turned out to be the biggest strength because, you know, he wasn't a gym guy. So how is he able to make that into an iconic action hero persona?ĭE SEMLYEN: Well, that was kind of it. He doesn't have world-class martial arts skills. MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, Bruce Willis is the one that really sticks out to me of the eight in your book because he doesn't have that massive, muscle-bound physique. But "Die Hard" turned out to be such a phenomenon that it actually transformed the whole action genre. They kind of put him in it as a last minute, you know, we haven't got anyone else 'cause so many people were turning down that film. And then you had Bruce Willis, who arrived kind of fully formed with "Die Hard," which he wasn't really meant to be in. Both had very different personas but kind of variations on the theme. And then in their wake, you had people coming in, Chuck Norris - not the best at acting, but he kind of carved out this niche for himself as the - kind of the karate guy. MARTÍNEZ: How did some of the others in your book find their places in this testosterone Tinseltown?ĭE SEMLYEN: Well, Stallone and Schwarzenegger kind of blazed the trail, like I said, and they just came charging into Hollywood and were just two insanely powerful forces that kind of changed everything. So people had done it before, but I think they just perfected the formula. You'd had Clint Eastwood, and you had, you know, Charles Bronson in "Death Wish." Bruce Lee was doing his thing. MARTÍNEZ: If they wrote the playbook, what is the playbook for what they wrote?ĭE SEMLYEN: Well, one-liners, body counts, the whole kind of one-man army model. The absolute impact that those two had on pop culture - I just don't think we've seen it since. And then Arnold came shortly afterwards - "Conan The Barbarian" and "The Terminator." And they just became instantly iconic. Sly kind of started the whole one-man army thing, in a way. But yeah, they were really the guys who started it all. You know, they've both just starred in their own TV series, which is the first for each. MARTÍNEZ: But Sly and Arnold are clearly the straws that stir this alpha male movie star cocktail.ĭE SEMLYEN: They're kind of the titans who are still yet to be surpassed in the genre, and they're still at it. SYLVESTER STALLONE: (As John Rambo) They drew first blood, not me.ĪRNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: (As The Terminator) I'll be back.īRUCE WILLIS: (As John McClane) Welcome to the party, pal. MARTÍNEZ: That's Nick de Semlyen, author of a new book called "The Last Action Heroes." In it, he focuses on eight action stars - Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan. And you have Chuck Norris recreating Vietnam but actually winning. And then these action stars arrive, and they were bringing something else to the table. NICK DE SEMLYEN: I think a lot of it was to do with the climate at the time, with America just had Vietnam, Watergate. There were big blockbusters that really leaned into a lot of things, including the Cold War with the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, the action in action movies went to a whole 'nother level.
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