Why Bruce Willis & Michael Bay’s $553M Survival Movie Wasn’t The “Favorite Experience” For One Supporting Star

A Michael Bay sci-fi survival movie, starring Bruce Willis, was not the greatest time for one supporting actor. Over the years, Bay has become widely recognized for his action-packed films, including Bad Boys and The Rock. Having garnered a loyal fanbase, and featuring well-known on-screen talent, his projects are generally commercial hits, even if audience reception varies. Throughout his career, Bay has collaborated with Dwayne Johnson, Stanley Tucci, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Jake Gyllenhaal, and more.

As a director, his biggest releases to date are the Transformers movies but, while installments have generated over $1 billion, Bay has yet to helm any sequels since The Last Knight in 2017. Among other successful blockbusters was Pearl Harbor, which loosely depicts the devastating 1941 attack in Hawaii. Despite being panned critically, as evidenced by its Rotten Tomatoes score of 24%, the film received an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. Bay has also produced many projects, including the A Quiet Place franchise and Prime Video’s Jack Ryan.

Armageddon Was Not The Greatest Time For Jason Isaacs

Isaacs Had A Supporting Role In The Michael Bay Film

Armageddon, a thriller action movie directed by Bay, premiered in 1998 and stars Bruce Willis. The film centers on a group of deep-core drillers, assembled by NASA to protect Earth from an impending asteroid. Along with Willis, the cast of Armageddon includes Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi, Keith David, Owen Wilson, and Jason Isaacs as Ronald Quincy. Upon release, the movie garnered underwhelming reactions, currently holding a RT score of 43%, but was another box office success for Bay, generating more than $553 million globally.

During an interview with Business Insider, Isaacs revealed that he was originally approached about playing an astronaut in Armageddon, but had committed to another movie. Isaacs then described how he prevented someone from interfering with his schedule and recalled that he had a responsibility to that production, which resulted in him taking on a different role. He noted that it was a smaller part and that, while shooting Armageddon, he was given a little more to do because Bay liked him. However, Isaacs explained that “it wasn’t my favorite experience,” due to being more of “an extra.” Read his comments below:

Not really. I’d done ‘Event Horizon,’ which was part of an ensemble.

I already had a bit of a career going in England. I was doing a comedy in Northern Ireland, Belfast, when I was offered ‘Armageddon’ and they wanted me to drop out because filming started the next morning. I was offered one of the astronauts in ‘Armageddon.’ And I went, ‘I can’t drop out!’

I remember this guy on the phone going, ‘Jason, you have to understand, this is a Bruce Willis project.’ And I went, ‘Mate, this is a David Thewlis project! But it doesn’t make any difference. I’m still a professional actor. I signed a contract.’ [He said,] ‘You let us handle that.’ And I went, ‘No! You’re not handling anything. I’m getting up in six hours and I’m on set.’

They came back to me and said, ‘OK, if you can’t play one of the astronauts, do you want to play this part? It’s only eight days.’ I remember the agent going, ‘But they’ll pay for you to stay in the hotel for six months. Six months, and we can get you some other meetings and work will go well.’

So, it was an odd film for me. I don’t know if it’s an anomaly. I wouldn’t have taken a part that small at the time, I think, if it hadn’t worked out this way.

On the very first day I did, frankly, the only scene I had lots of lines in. And Michael Bay took a shining to me and said, ‘Oh, that was great. Let’s have you back. We’ll give you a clipboard, we’ll stick you next to Billy Bob. You come in, you’ll be in all the scenes, and we’ll throw you a line here and there.’

At the time, because I’m nicely brought up, I went, ‘Oh, thanks so much,’ thinking, ‘Are you f–king kidding me?’ And then I was there, essentially as an extra, for six months. So it wasn’t my favorite experience, although I did get to go to NASA and meet the people who’d been up in the International Space Station, all the rest of it. But I didn’t like standing on the set for six months with a clipboard, hoping to be thrown a line like a fish on a fish farm.

Isaacs went on to add that he was not overly upset about it, but commented that “I didn’t have any choice.” He explained that there were many other actors on set without much to do as well. Read the rest of Isaacs’ comments below:

It’s not his fault. It was nice. Look, I’m around producing occasionally, very rarely directing. You want the best people you can have on set to do anything at all. It’s not insulting, but it’s just — I didn’t have any choice. I was paid for the whole film. I couldn’t say, ‘Well, actually, no, Michael, I’m just going to come in for the eight days you booked me for.’

So, I was there all the time — with, by the way, many other fabulous actors, who were great Broadway actors and people who were all the techs at NASA, who were also waiting to be thrown a line here and there. It was an odd experience. The entire film, frankly.

What This Means For Jason Isaacs’ Career

Armageddon Was His First Major Hollywood Success

Though Isaacs was a working actor in the ’90s, he wasn’t yet a known quantity in the U.S. Event Horizon, the 1997 space horror Isaacs mentions above, wasn’t a success upon release, meaning Armageddon was likely the first time many Americans saw Isaacs in a Hollywood film. His role in the Bay movie may have been small, but it preceded a far more prominent role for Isaacs a few years later when he appeared as the villainous Colonel William Tavington opposite Mel Gibson in The Patriot (2000).

The Patriot was followed by another major Hollywood movie for Isaacs with Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001). It was in 2002, however, that Isaacs took on the role that he is now most known for with Lucius Malfoy. After Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Isaacs resprised his role as the villainous supporting character in most of the sequels that followed, with the eight Harry Potter films collectively grossing over $7 billion worldwide.

Isaacs’ role as Lucius is representative of the types of roles that he would take in Hollywood projects in the years that followed the last Harry Potter movie in 2011. Though he did occasionally serve as a lead, such as in the Dig miniseries in 2015, Isaacs is best known for playing memorable supporting characters, just as he did in Fury (2014), Hotel Mumbai (2018), and Operation Mincemeat (2021), among other films. He’s also recently made a splash with his role in the cast of The White Lotus season 3.

Our Take On Isaacs’ Role In Armageddon

His Character Serves An Early Purpose

It is interesting to think about who Isaacs might have played in Armageddon had circumstances been different, and to hear about his time making the film. His character, Ronald, worked in research at NASA and displayed intelligence when discouraging any idea of blasting the asteroid. Instead, it was his proposal of destroying the space rock from within that led NASA to gather core-drillers. Throughout Bay’s movie, he does not have much else to do, but spends time on-screen with Thornton’s Dan Truman and tracks the crew going into space.

Though, at the time, Isaacs may have felt frustrated with his small role with limited dialogue in Armageddon, his presence undoubtedly makes the film more fun to revisit. The movie’s cast is one of its great strengths, and Isaacs’ screen presence just enhances the star power on display, especially given his current status in Hollywood after decades of notable projects and larger roles.

Source: Business Insider

Armageddon

Release Date

July 1, 1998

Runtime

151 minutes

Writers

Jonathan Hensleigh, J.J. Abrams, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno, Robert Roy Pool