Bruce Willis with M. Night Shyamalan and (above) with Demi MooreBruce in Tears of the Sun

This man sure looks like Bruce Willis. As he sits on a stool in the bar of the Peninsula Hotel one recent afternoon, there is the familiar pate with the buzz-cut sides, there?s the Dick Tracy nose and the etched-in lines that frame his mouth, like parentheses. This guy has Willis?s low-key swagger, too, and, dressed in a grey V-neck sweater, jeans and cowboy boots, he?s got the man?s unfussy style.

But this doesn?t sound like Bruce Willis. Not the one who plops down on David Letterman?s upholstered chair every now and then, looking like he?s just been roused out of bed after a bender. Not the harmonica-playing, porn star-dating Willis, or the smirking action hero known for his signature ?yippy-ki-yay? from the three Die Hard movies. Nor does it seem like the Willis who apparently worked out a perfectly amicable child-sharing truce with his ex-wife Demi Moore.

Everything about that Willis says, ?You can?t take any of this seriously. Because it?s too much fun.?

?That?s one of the cards in my deck,? he says, when asked for the current whereabouts of Good Time Bruce. ?I?m having a ball. One of my mottos is to live it up. Early in life, I lost some friends, in freak accidents. We know that death is out there, waiting for us all, but most people are surprised by death. So I try to live in the moment.?

Junketing through town to promote Hostage, a thriller that opens in the American theatres, Willis seems subdued and reflective. Perhaps he?s channelling the character he plays in the film, a beleaguered cop who must rescue a family from a collection of miscreants and shadowy criminals in order to save the life of his wife and daughter.

In a career that now spans about 20 years and dozens of movies, maybe it?s hard to get bubbly every time out. At 49, Willis is entitled to some world-weariness. He?s survived the non-stop battering of the tabloids, which were obsessed with his married life and now seem just as interested in his bachelorhood. He?s endured his share of box-office fiascos, too, though he?s never fallen off Hollywood?s roster of A-list talent.

Willis has been written about almost ceaselessly since 1984, when he pulled off a Hollywood newcomer fantasy and beat out 3,000 actors for a starring role in Moonlighting, a huge television hit with Cybill Shepherd. At the time, Willis was a part-time bartender and New York stage actor who?d appeared mostly in off-off-Broadway productions, in theatres that held 300 people.

His transition from obscurity to fame didn?t go smoothly. ?I still haven?t recovered from it,? he says. ?I don?t think I handled it very well, the first few years. I was 29. I wasn?t equipped for it and there?s nothing that prepares you for it.?

That was just the beginning. Willis became a bankable movie property in 1988, with Die Hard, his third film, which earned him a then-stunning $5 million fee and eventually launched a rickety fleet of imitators. Willis could have rehashed variations of this theme, but to his credit he took genuine risks. He did comedy (Death Becomes Her), sci-fi (12 Monkeys), psychological drama (Color of Night) and a period piece (Billy Bathgate).

?He has constantly challenged himself as an actor, and most stars don?t do that,? says Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks, a studio that is planning an animated film with Willis as one of the star voices.

For years, no matter what he did, Willis in the public imagination often seemed like an action guy grasping for extra credit. Then came Pulp Fiction, the daddy of all independent films, released in 1994. In it, Willis is an ageing boxer named Butch, who risks his life to scam a bullying underworld boss paying him to throw a fight. Willis plays the character as a wily stoic who is just barely suppressing his fury and terror. There?s hardly an extra gesture, barely any visible emotions, but you know that under the surface Butch is boiling. Willis?s inspiration was Al Pacino in the Godfather movies, a minimalist performance and for Willis a major influence.

Pulp Fiction earned raves for Willis, and a few years later, when he appeared in The Sixth Sense, a creepy drama about dead people (no punching or punch lines) the choice seemed a bit daring but smart. Pulp also turned Willis into one of cinema?s rarest creatures: the unabashedly bald leading man. He?d been thinning since Moonlighting, but he was smooth as granite by the time he put on the gloves as Butch. He says he?s been thanked by hairless men ever since.

Bruce in Tears of the Sun

Did anyone in Hollywood ever suggest, you know, a rug, or plugs, or something? ?No. And had they done so I would have told them to go.?

The oldest of four children, Willis had a confidence-sapping stutter as a kid and a reputation as a bit of a brawler. After his parents divorced, he lived with his father, a welder and pipe fitter. Willis worked for a time at a nearby DuPont chemical factory and was also a security guard at a nuclear power plant. He discovered acting at Montclair State College, where he appeared his first semester in a theatrical version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo?s Nest. To his amazement, his stammer vanished onstage.

?I was 19 and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,? he says. ?At the time I didn?t realise how fortunate I was.? He dropped out of college, then headed to Manhattan and a variety of odd jobs as he searched for gigs. He tended bar for years and lived in a crummy apartment in Hell?s Kitchen. He lived lean, he did drugs. In 1984, he auditioned with Madonna for a role in Desperately Seeking Susan and when he didn?t get it he flew to Los Angeles to visit a girlfriend and check out the Summer Olympics. His New York agent had an office there and he was sent on a couple of auditions. One was for Police Academy. The other was Moonlighting.

Willis had settled enough by 1987 to marry Demi Moore, and he?d developed a sufficient allergy to LA to move to a small town in Idaho called Hailey. For the couple, the idea was to rear their children in an environment as close to normal as you can get when both your parents are weekly fodder for People magazine. They lived on a 48-acre estate.

Willis and Moore split in 2000, and he no longer calls Hailey his home. ?About a year-and-a-half ago our kids came to us and said, ?We don?t want to live in the cold weather anymore,?? Willis says. The topic of Willis?s children ? Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, now all in their teens ? is about the only one that makes him glow. He calls them his favourite people in the world, then talks at length about childbirth, about the wonder of being in a delivery room and laying eyes on a newborn.

He sounds humbled for a moment. There?s a tone in his voice that?s absent when he discusses his next movies, or his sideline as a blues harmonica player and the band?s upcoming gig in Las Vegas. He sounds a lot like a man with nothing to prove.