If this report is to be believed, director Kevin Smith had a hard time working with entitled pain-in-ass Bruce Willis. Nice-guy Smith put up with a lot of crap from Willis on the set of his film, A Couple of Dicks, allowing Willis to change scenes and boss people around. At the wrap party Smith is said to have made a toast to the cast and crew, thanking them all but excluding Willis by name, calling him an “F’ing dick”:

When the new Bruce Willis flick, “A Couple of Dicks,” wound up with a wrap party in New York, the only absent member of the cast and crew was Bruce himself – which surprised nobody because the star and director Kevin Smith had clashed nastily. An eyewitness says Bruce high-handedly made “creative” changes to every single one of his scenes, stomping on director Smith – who let him get away with it “because he’s Bruce Willis.” When Smith stood at the wrap party to make a toast, he bellowed: “I want to thank everyone who worked on the film, except for Bruce Willis… who is a F’ing Dick!” Everyone cheered wildly, waving their memento gifts – metallic water bottles featuring Bruce’s kisser with a big “X” drawn through it.

[From the National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Wakler’s column, September 7, 2009]

Smith seems like a very upfront person and if he had a problem with Willis he’ll probably be willing to talk about it when he’s doing press for this film next year. (A Couple of Dicks is out in late February.) We don’t hear a lot of complaints from Smith, but in the interviews I’ve seen with him he’s really honest and straightforward and I bet he’ll at least allude to issues with Willis if this is true. Also, Smith once really trashed Reese Witherspoon in 2001 for snubbing his then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy) at a casting call. He was pretty blunt about it, and then defended his right to be a gossip, blogging in 2006 “The great irony is, the TalkBack people on the blog/gossip sites are taking me to task for being a gossip. Kettle, I call thee black.” So maybe we’ll hear it straight from Smith if this is true. It’s not like he has to worry about Willis no longer being willing to work with him – the guy’s career has been on a downslide for a while. Also, if these water bottles with Willis’ face x’ed out exist we’ll probably see one at some point.

MSat advises me that the feud between Smith and Willis goes way back, and that Smith titled a 2006 comedy CD An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder.