Willis Trashes Romney in Vague Rant

Bruce Willis is a big enough movie star that he doesn’t have to explain himself to the press. And the press, in turn, feels no need to make him back up his assertions when it comes to taking down a member of the GOP.

Willis recently sat down with Esquire for a wide-ranging interview that included some generic, rambling broadsides against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The former governor is fair game for brickbats, of course, but Willis’ comments just sounded … unfocused. And the Esquire scribe apparently wasn’t in the mood for any follow-up queries.

“Yeah, Romney. He’s just such a disappointment, an embarrassment. Chin up, hair up. He’s just one of those guys, one of those guys who says he’s going to change everything,” he is saying. “And he’ll get in there, and they’ll smile at him and introduce themselves: ‘We’re Congress, we make sure nothing changes.’ He won’t do it. He can’t. Everybody wants to be Barack Obama. And what did he change?”

Knee jerk pessimism is easy. And Willis is no dummy. So why couldn’t the interview get something more out of him?

I’ve conducted hundreds of celebrity interviews, most of which occur within a 15-30 minute time span. That usually leaves little time for follow-ups or more invasive lines of questioning. Magazine profiles are different. They spend more time with their sources and can dig deeper than a traditional Q&A. Maybe Willis had more concrete examples of why Romney is a disappointment, or why the actor feels the ex-governor won’t change a darn thing in D.C.

We won’t know more from this exchange.