Crashing Sundance: The Time I Made Bruce Willis Mad

Bruce Willis was mad at me.

He didn’t say it, but there it was: the trademark steely-eyed scowl. The one that’s reserved for Eastern European villains from the 1980s, masked gimps, and now, apparently, irksome members of the press.

“I’m a good skier,” Bruce Willis growled. “I don’t know what your cousin is talking about.”

With that, Bruce Willis stomped into the Sundance premiere for Lay The Favorite. And I was asked to leave.

I lied.

Another slow Tuesday afternoon at work. Another lucrative ESPN.com reading day. Until my buddy James found the complete event guide to Sundance, stocked with parties, times, and, most importantly, contact emails.

I emailed them all: Playboy, ESPN, The Roots concert organizers. Armed with my real work email and a fake story, I spun my tale:

I was a writer with *&^%#. Our readers are keenly interested in [Insert company here]’s involvement with Sundance. Could I cover the [insert party here] to relay your firm’s contributions to the arts?

Isn’t *&^%# a tech company? some of the shrewder publicists asked.

Well, we’re changing our image…

Playboy saw through the ruse. The BBC, however, did not. Nor did the PR team for Lay The Favorite, a sports betting movie starring Catherine Zeta Jones, Vince Vaughn and Bruce Willis. Or, perhaps, they did but were too desperate.

“This true-life gambling world tale can’t cash in all its chips,” demurred The Hollywood Report amid a flurry of tepid reviews and even worse betting puns. Lay The Favorite was a film—in spite of its constellation of aged stars, or perhaps because of them—in desperate need of a Sundance bump for distribution. The PR team pulled out all the stops: a full-on network blitz, social media bombardment, and a jam-packed Red Carpet premiere.

In short, they would take anyone.