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Bruce Willis felt 'handicapped' with stammer

Feb 12, 2013, 15:01 GMT

Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis used to think he was 'handicapped' because of a speech impediment.

The 57-year-old actor lacked confidence when growing up due to his stammer and relied on visual acts to get himself noticed when he was a boy in the Club Scouts.

However, Bruce soon realised acting helped him speak fluently and describes the change in himself as 'miraculous' - though the impediment hasn't gone completely.

Speaking in an interview with GQ magazine, Bruce explained: '[I use to do] little skits you would probably find in the Cub Scout handbook. Little tricks. It got a big laugh, and I thought, 'This is it.'

'The Cub Scout years, I had a terrible stutter. But then I did some theatre somewhere, probably in high school. And when I memorised words, I didn't stutter, which was just miraculous.

'That was the beginning of the gradual dispelling of my stutter. I thought I was handicapped. I couldn't talk at all. I still stutter around some people now.'

Bruce - who has nine-month-old daughter Mabel with his wife Emma Heming Willis, and grown-up kids, Rumer, 24, Scout, 21, and Tallulah, 19, with ex-wife Demi Moore - is best known for his roles in action films such as 'Looper' and 'The Expendables', but he still struggles to find the right 'metaphor' to sum up his job.

He continued: 'I can't even figure my job out. I can't figure out the proper metaphor to try to explain what it is I do, even to my kids.

'I can't get it into a nice, cozy box - 'This is what I do, and this is why.' I still like it - you can't beat the dough. But I'm sure there will be some kind of penance.'