Never just a tough guy, Bruce Willis makes a smart move to ensure his legacy

This isn't an obituary, let's be clear. Bruce Willis' announcement yesterday, via his daughter Rumer's Instagram account, that he would be "stepping away" from acting following a recent aphasia diagnosis, shows him more than just alive, but aware, of his legacy and his priorities.

As crushing a moment as this is for fans (like myself), there's a savvy to the actor's choice that only makes me admire his best turns even more. Willis was always sharp, always fast. Now, at age 67, he will be those things forever. If he played criminals or boxers, like the banged-up Butch Coolidge of 1994's Pulp Fiction, Willis made sure to emphasize their private lives. You can feel Butch chafing at being called a palooka. It's just a split-second, but it may be the moment when he secretly decides to go rogue.

Die Hard turned Willis into a new kind of action hero, more pliable than any Stallone or Schwarzenegger. Barefoot, he wisecracks his way through that 1988 Christmas classic, and partly, he's perfecting a formula: the street-smart urban cop confronting L.A.'s sheen and crashing straight through it. (See also Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop.) But Willis makes it a joy with every wince and complaint. It's only because he's so vulnerable and mouthy that Alan Rickman can be so glacially terrifying.

The essence of Willis is verbal, smirking, unshaven. His relatability is what allowed directors as different as Michael Bay and Terry Gilliam to finance movies such as Armageddon (1998) and 12 Monkeys (1995). There's a great manic comic performance somewhere in Willis that he relentlessly chased when he was busiest. You can see flashes of it in Death Becomes Her (1992) and The Fifth Element (1997), but it was never fully tapped. That onscreen presence, defined by energy, witticisms, parrying and thrusting, is the one that Willis wants to protect with his news. How can you blame him?

Another side to his persona that I've always admired is his generous streak — sometimes exasperated, elsewhere a slow burn — that helped him through his dazzling mid-to-late-'80s run on ABC's groundbreaking dramedy Moonlighting opposite Cybill Shepherd. Willis bantered. He cajoled. He teased, brayed, and let himself be embarrassed. He's a comedian-turned-action star, and a comedian first. (This is also why his turn as a snobby, high-above-it journalist in 1990's The Bonfire of the Vanities is one of his least persuasive.)

Listening is Willis' secret weapon in his most masterful effort, his performance in M. Night Shyamalan's haunted 1999 thriller The Sixth Sense. He's playing a child psychologist, so you expect Malcolm Crowe to lean in, but it's only because the character is so attentive that you forget to ask yourself the questions that would puncture a lesser thriller. Everything that Willis was at that point in his career — funny, compassionate, physical, an above-the-title movie star — are what create the film's still-shocking piece of misdirection. Willis is the reason The Sixth Sense works.

Let's not mourn him, because that would be premature. Aphasia is a syndrome that slowly affects speech and coordination over time; until then Willis will live as fully as he can. And we owe it to the dignified way he makes his news known — modestly, supported by his extended family — to celebrate an actor who, during an especially tricky moment for Hollywood marked by loss of control, took that control and exercised it elegantly and decisively.

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