William Sadler

I have no doubts that saying this will ruffle quite a few feathers, but hear me out: Die Hard 2 is, in my opinion, the best Die Hard movie.

Assuming you've now finished yelling at me through your computer/phone/whatever device you're reading this on, I'll explain.

I didn't watch Die Hard until I was in my mid-20's. By the time I did, I'd already seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Olympus Has Fallen, White House Down, Game Over, Man!, and likely a whole bunch of other movies I can't even remember right now that aren't Die Hard (but are, in fact, Die Hard).

So, while I can understand and appreciate that Die Hard led to those other movies, rather than the other way around, by the time I watched Die Hard, it felt like a letdown, a derivative of the derivatives of itself.

By introducing the twist, which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it, Die Hard 2 felt like a breath of fresh air—a twist on the formula that the series created, but that I was all too used to by the time I watched them.

To whatever extent one can be fair to a movie, I fully grasp that it's not fair that I'm holding the success of Die Hard against it, but, just as with my feelings about Die Hard, knowing my feelings are irrational doesn't change them.

I also want to point out that this interview was meant to be around 20 minutes originally, but as much as I love Die Hard 2, I didn't actually anticipate spending that entire time talking about it.

Before we started, William encouraged me to go over if need be, and I'm glad he did, because the entire conversation yielded some great stories.