Bruce Willis and Justin Long in Live Free or Die Hard Frank Masi/Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Justin, it seems people either really love those Mac commercials or really loathe them. Thoughts?
Justin: Oh, I get a lot of shit for those. Listen to this: When I was kid, I loved Mad magazine, but I never thought I'd actually be in it, never thought I'd have my own caricature done, you know those cool pictures. My publicist calls me awhile back and says, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're in Mad magazine. The bad news is you're in a feature called the 50 worst things about TV. And you're number one."

The beginning of your career was largely defined by low budget fare, like Jeepers Creepers. Do your fans feel abandoned by you, now that you're making movies with Bruce Willis?
Justin: I get pestered by fans about that, yes. Especially about Jeepers Creepers. That movie is so cultish. I could do Gone With the Wind with Cate Blanchett, and still be known as "the Jeepers Creepers guy." It's as if I haven't ever done anything else. I'm asked a lot of, "Hey, when are you finally making part three?"

Because part two was so good.
Justin: [laughs]
Maggie: Didn't we just find that in a video store?
Justin: We did. We found a Jeepers Creepers double pack. Part one and part two; two for the price of one, for $5.99.
Maggie: I think it was $4.99. [laughs]
Justin: Jeepers Creepers 2, I got two things from that. We were shooting in this field and something bit me in the ass, like a spider, and it developed into this perfectly symmetrical round sore, with all these little round sores around it. You know, like a crop circle on my ass. And it just kept getting worse. I worked for two days on the movie, and the first day, it bit me, and the second day, a week later, I had to go back, and this [bite] was getting so bad I had the on-set medic, a woman, I had her examine it. I said, "Can you just take a look at this thing?" I had to literally bend over and show this stranger my ass. I was expecting, "Oh, it's that," or "It's this." And I hear her go, "Hmm. What the — ? Now, wait a minute…" I eventually went to see a dermatologist, and he was stumped, too, but concluded that it was either a spider bite or a poisonous thistle. So that's one thing I got.

And the other?
Justin: I got a girlfriend. The girl who had the dream about me in the movie? She and I started dating.

Was Bruce vocal at all on the set? How involved was he in the process?
Justin: He was definitely hands-on, which was good to see. He could've come out and walked his way through it and collected his paycheck, said "yippee ki yay," shot the gun, scowled, and rested on laurels. Instead, he was constantly coming up with ideas, and constantly trying to make [the movie] better with the stunts, and the lighting. He was very meticulous.
Maggie: He really knows what works, too, in a genre like this. What I really admired about Bruce in this installment is that he sort of gave the younger spotlight to Justin and sort of said, "This is a franchise that's been going on for a very long time, and I can't expect to be the 'John McClane' I was 20 years ago." He's not doing that. He's not pretending to be something he isn't anymore.
Justin: But there were still things he was doing that I, 25 years younger than him, there's no way I could do that. So for a guy that age, he's really very limber.