Covering celebrities is a lot of hurry up and wait. Press events always require media to arrive early and then stand around for hours as the stars inevitably run behind. Boring as f-ck yes, but this is always when you exchange war stories, compare notes – who’s a great interview, who has an eating disorder, who can’t go five minutes with locking himself in the bathroom for a quick rail, who bites her fingernails and messes with your shot because she’s nic-fitting all over the junket room.

The other day at Comic-Con the talk turned to Bruce Willis. He was in San Diego for The Expendables (I actually can’t wait to see this for the laughs) and RED. Now Bruce is notoriously prickly about his personal space. Not in a neurotic way, but in that super Alpha Male way, like “don’t touch me or I’ll break your face” because you don’t want to be this close to the Man, I’m the motherf-cking man”.

Sometimes on a press line it gets cosy. The more popular you are, the cosier it gets. Sometimes reporters, in a scrum, have to jostle for position, get their mics up close in order to better record the soundbite. Do not do this with Bruce Willis. He will want to f-ck you up. He will let you know in no uncertain terms to get that goddamn mic out of his face. It’s never happened to me (I’ve never interviewed him), but it’s happened to many others, and this time at Comic-Con there was some finger pointing, and there was some chest puffing, and suddenly John McClane was up in the guy’s grill like somehow an intrusive microphone could truncate his penis...

It was a little extra.

As was the strap underneath his shoulder.

They say he was packing. At a media event, they say he was packing. He has his own security and event security and he was supposedly packing. Amazing right?


Photos from Wenn.com and London Entertainment/Splashnewsonline.com and Michael Buckner/Kevin Winter/Gettyimages.com