Why Sylvester Stallone Told a Hollywood Heavyweight to Never Work With Bruce Willis
Emmerdale star Tony Fillingham says Sylvester Stallone once hit him with a piece of tough-love work advice that changed his outlook. The 51-year-old TV fixture, known for quiz shows and bit-part turns, calls their brief collaboration the luckiest break of his career.
File this under: unexpected career advice. Tony Fillingham — 51, TV fixture, Emmerdale alum, and general quiz show regular — says he got a very specific warning from Sylvester Stallone while shooting a bread commercial. Yes, really.
Fillingham told the Daily Star he worked with Stallone on a Warburtons ad and the action legend could not have been more welcoming. He even asked Tony to call him Sly and let him salute him in the spot. Then came the eyebrow-raiser: a heads-up about Bruce Willis.
'He told me to call him Sly and gave me advice about never working with Bruce Willis. Apparently, Bruce is always late!'
Being late is a cardinal sin on sets — it burns time and money fast — but let’s keep the pitchforks holstered. It is one guy’s story, and Hollywood memories can be... flexible. That said, Stallone and Willis do have history.
The 2013 blow-up that got loud fast
Back in 2013, Stallone publicly announced Willis was out of the third Expendables movie and Harrison Ford was in. On Twitter (since deleted), Stallone took a flamethrower to his former co-star, calling him 'greedy and lazy' and adding that those traits are a 'sure formula for career failure' — as reported at the time by THR.
What sparked it? An insider claimed it was a money fight: Willis allegedly wanted $1 million per day for four days of on-location work in Bulgaria. Stallone and the team reportedly were not into that deal. For context, Willis had appeared in the first two Expendables films, which is why the 'lazy' jab landed like a grenade. If you want to connect dots, some folks read 'lazy' as code for showing up late. Again: rumor territory.
The health context that complicates everything
In 2022, Willis' family said he was retiring from acting after an aphasia diagnosis. Symptoms can build slowly; there is no clear public timeline on when his condition began. Two crew members from one of his past films told the Los Angeles Times he struggled to remember lines and sometimes seemed unsure why he was on set.
So could early symptoms have been bubbling up years earlier, around the Expendables era? It is possible. Or maybe these were just clashing expectations and a tough negotiation. We do not have a definitive timeline, only a pile of anecdotes and some very loud tweets.
Either way, Tony got a story out of a bread ad. Also: Rocky IV as his favorite? Taste.
- The Expendables 3 — Director: Patrick Hughes — Release date: August 15, 2014 — Rotten Tomatoes: 32%