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The Zoo Palast has seen its share of stars over the years, but yesterday was pretty special, even by Berlin's standards, with Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte and Meryl Streep all in town. |
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Breakfast Of Champions could never have been made without Bruce Willis. That was the message both director Alan Rudolph and co-star Nick Nolte were trumpeting yesterday as Willis sat between them at the press conference for the film, which received its world premiere here in Berlin. It was "quite amazing and wonderful," growled a hoarse-sounding Nolte, that a star of Willis' stature should go back to storytelling. "He financed this film entirely." |
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Despite being one of Hollywood's highest paid stars, Willis admitted that he didn't feel "that challenged by the larger budget films I do… it's only in the independent field that actors are really allowed to act." Hence his decision to play a character as wildly outlandish as Midland City's car salesman extraordinaire, Dwayne Hoover. In the film, Nolte gets to wear skimpy red lingerie and high heels. He was allowed to design his own dress. Knowing that he was flat-chested ("and I didn't want to get silicon implants") Nolte went for the "Phoenician" look by wearing the garment back to front. "My line will be out this fall," he noted. Rudolph had been trying to bring Breakfast of Champions to the screen for years before Willis' intervention finally enabled him to do so. Vonnegut's satire, he said, was now more relevant than ever. What might first have seemed a satire about US society post-Vietman, was now "a reflection." Describing himself as "born, bred and patriotic American," Rudolph wryly suggested that the beauty of America lay in "its absolute entertainment value… America shouts at you every day." |