Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard Photo by Frank Masi

When he beats you up?
You know, usually he comes out pretty well in these things. History says he tends to get beaten up a lot throughout the movie but in the end he does all right.

Were you a fan of the franchise?
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not fanatical, but I have buddies of mine who'll cruise around Olympic Boulevard here in Los Angeles and they'll be like [upon seeing Fox Studio's corporate office], "It's Nakatomi Plaza!"

They must be very psyched that you're in this.
Oh, yes. I mean, I got e-mails from high school buddies: "Heard you're in Die Hard. Don't fuck it up."[laughs] Things like that.

Do you get your "Yippee ki yay" moment?
It always cracks me up, all these conversations over the line, "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker." You want to remind everybody, if you watch the first movie, it was kind of a throwaway line. It was a throw-away line over the walkie-talkie. I bet there wasn't a committee sitting around trying to figure out when he should say it, why he should say it, who he should say it to. It's so crazy. But it's also a great deal of fun.

So what is your character all about?
He's a terrorist, but it's a cyber-terrorism kind of plot that's happening. There's this thing about [my character] having worked for the government and he's a guy who warned the government of the possibility [of large-scale hacking]. And I think you have to assume that he was probably a bit cracked before, because there is also an element of "I told you so." I first heard about the plot over at Fox Studios — one of the executives was telling me that they had read an article in Wired magazine saying that, as devastatingly sad as it was to see the World Trade Center come down, the real threat to this country was cyber-terrorism. That terrorists, if they were able, could really cripple this country in a matter of a few short days.