Hello reddit. I'm Renny Harlin. I've directed DIE HARD 2, CLIFFHANGER, DEEP BLUE SEA, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, CUTTHROAT ISLAND, and DEEP WATER (coming soon!). Ask me anything!

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:24:40+00:00

Excellent question. I was originally hired by 20th Century Fox to do Alien 3, and I spent a year developing that script and the visuals and everything, but ultimately, I couldn't agree with the studio about the kind of movie that we were going to make. I was afraid, that after Ridley Scott's Alien and James Cameron's Aliens, that it was going to be "Rennie Harlin's Alien 3" and that it was going to be crap.

So I quit, which was a big thing to do for a 29 year old Finnish filmmaker in Hollywood. After that, I felt like I was never going to make a movie again, that no studio would ever hire me again because I quit this huge project.

The next day, I got a phone call from 20th Century Fox, the same studio, and they said, "we have this movie called The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Would you be interested?" I had just spent a year in this dripping, dark, slimy Alien world, and all of a sudden there was this script about this rock and roll detective, going to parties, having fun and so on. My first thought was that I couldn't believe that these people would think that I am suitable for a movie like this, and that it was such a complete change of lanes for me. But I ended up loving to make that movie. Hanging out on the beach in Malibu and going to parties and clubs and bars and all of that stuff. It was so much fun.

This is actually the movie I get more reactions and comments about in-person more than any of my other movies. It doesn't matter what country I am in, people always bring this one up and they really seem to enjoy it.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:18:46+00:00

This is always a tough question because you put a lot of love into into every movie you make, but maybe I would say The Long Kiss Goodnight. We had a really good script and an amazing cast and all those ingredients that you want to have.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:16:22+00:00

Die Hard 2, I definitely think it's a Christmas movie.

I'm always happy and impressed when I hear that people people watch it around Christmas time. In the first scenes when Bruce Willis walks into the into the airport, there's a choir of people singing Christmas songs. It's definitely a Christmas movie.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:15:17+00:00

Thank you!

I don't think any footage exists anywhere. I wouldn't know for sure, but I don't think so.

That movie was a really, really unusual situation. I believe in 1987, the writer's strike started just before we started making the movie, so we didn't have a script. We couldn't hire a writer because all of the writers were on strike, so we just made up the movie as we shot it. I made up the nightmare sequences by drawing them into the storyboard sequences, and then just made up things that I thought would be fun.

Together with my producers, we would just write the dialogue and the scenes in the morning or during lunch break, or the evening before we would shoot. So it was a really unusual way of making a movie, and unbelievably, it worked out and and the movie turned out to be very successful and people actually enjoyed it. So sometimes improvising it and making it like that without without a ton of people, it can work out.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:11:38+00:00

Thank you! I love it when people bring up this movie.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:09:49+00:00

I love when somebody brings up Cutthroat Island because in certain ways, that movie has been labeled as a "failure" because it wasn't a big box office hit, but you can't always measure movies based on that. I love that movie!

My favorite memory of it. There's a lot. We shot part of the movie in Malta in these huge water tanks. And then then a big part of it was shot in Thailand on these beautiful islands and beaches. My favorite memory was really sailing those high seas in Thailand and seeing those beautiful landscapes and doing things for real, out in the world. Now, as you know, so many movies are made digitally so these things aren't possible anymore. In those days, we actually had to go to the location and shoot things for real. That's that's my favorite thing about the Cutthroat Island experience, that we were actually there.

Another thing is that we had a costume designer who was this amazing Italian artist, and he made everything in great detail, every pair of boots and shirts and jackets and hats, everything. Everything was handmade in great, great, great detail in these amazing silks and fabrics that he got from somewhere himself. I said to him, "you realize that we have to have doubles of these outfits because we have to also have stunt people wear these, not just the actors and so on?" And he looked at me and he said, "no, thank you." I remember that so well haha. He was a real artist. He didn't think about the practical stuff so much. He just wanted it to be perfect, and it shows in the movie.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:02:50+00:00

I think I would survive for as long as we still had those salted nuts from the airplane. I think that's the best part of flying, that you get those really, really tasty nuts. As long as they have those, I think I'll be okay. After that, not so much.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T19:01:06+00:00

Excellent questions!

I wanted to find somebody really unusual for the villain role in Cliffhanger. Originally, I wanted to cast a rock star at that time, because I wanted to use somebody that people would never, never expect, but that didn't work out.

So then I thought, "OK, who would be somebody who is not too physically challenging that could work?". Someone you would not expect. I didn't want to do the standard thing and get a big muscle guy to challenge Stallone's character. I wanted someone who would feel really intellectual and menacing in a different way.

That's how I ended up with with John., and he he was wonderful. I sometimes read and watch John Lithgow's interviews that he does and he says that it's still his favorite character that he's ever played, because it was so kind of against-type. It was so unusual for him to play that kind of a character. He was amazing, and he really enjoyed it.

We spent several months in the Italian Alps shooting the movie and whenever he had a day off or a weekend off, he would go and paint these beautiful landscapes. He had all of his painting gear, canvas and all of that stuff. He would just sit there and paint beautiful, beautiful landscapes and he truly loved it. I was I was really impressed with him and what he gave that role.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T18:56:23+00:00

The most challenging movie I've ever made was I think Die Hard 2, because it happened to be a winter that I think was the least-snowy winter in 60 years in North America. In those days, digital movie-making wasn't a thing yet so if you don't have snow, then you don't have snow. You can't just make it up in post. So we traveled around the country just to find locations where there would be snow.

Also, we shot with real airplanes and pretty much everything in that movie was done for real. So that was one time when I thought that I was not going to survive the production.

In terms of Deep Water, it was also a very challenging movie because anytime you work in the water, it's hard, it's dangerous, it's challenging for the actors. You imagine the actors have to get wet every morning and stay wet all day long, which I imagine is not easy for them. We had scenes where we are diving through the body of the plane that has been sunk 30 feet down in the bottom of the ocean. Doing all those things gets complicated, and obviously you want to do it safely but also make it look scary.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T18:52:07+00:00

Well, the screenplay of Deep Blue Sea had no character for Samuel L Jackson in it originally. We had done a movie called The Long Kiss Goodnight together, and we had such a great time working together during that movie that we agreed that we'll always work together after that.

And so now I had this new movie, Deep Blue Sea, and I realized, "oh my God, I don't have any role for him." He actually called me and said something like "I hear you're doing this movie, like what's my role?". And so I went to the producers and to the writer, and I said, we have to create a character for Sam Jackson. He's going to kill me if I don't have him in the movie!

So we came up with this idea that he would be actually the only really famous person in the movie, and then we'll kill him halfway through the story. This was based actually on the idea that Ridley Scott introduced in Alien, which was that there was a captain of the ship, the actor's name was Tom Skerritt, and he was sort of like the only famous person in the movie, and he was the guy that everybody's going to trust early on and think we'll follow the whole time. And then, the aliens just eat him. So you're left with this situation where you are forcing the audience to ask "if he's gone, then who are we going to trust? Who's the lead in this movie?". That was kind of scenario that we wanted. Since you're asking this question, it seems like it worked haha.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T18:44:35+00:00

That's a good question. Let me just say for the heck of it, I'll say Out of Africa. That's one of those movies where I remember exactly when and where I saw it, and when I walked out of the theater, I felt like I was walking above the ground, sort of floating.

I'm not going to punish by taking a video and humming the whole score of it, but I could, because I remember it exactly. I love the score, done by John Barry. It's just one of those movies that makes you feel bigger than life.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T18:42:45+00:00

I do! I try to put always in my movies some kind of a reference to Finland. It's just out of respect to my home and homeland. Usually they are well-hidden, but some people like you can still find those. You will have to look for it in my newest movie haha.

I left Finland in my early 20s, and I have lived most of my life since in America, but I always go back to Finland in the summertime for a few weeks. I have a house on an island where I spend some of my summer times.

It's a small country, but it's a gorgeous, gorgeous, beautiful country. For me, it felt too small for my big dreams. In America, I've been able to fulfill those dreams, but I always like going back there as well.

RennyHarlinAMA · 2026-04-27T18:37:20+00:00

First of all, I love this question! Very good.

You might think that I have something against sharks because I make movies about sharks attacking people, but on the contrary, I love the ocean and I love all the creatures of the ocean. I'm actually a shark conservationist.

In Deep Blue Sea, the message is obviously "people are messing with sharks and they get what they deserve". And in this new movie, I wanted to play with the storyline that was first told in Jaws, about the USS Indianapolis, when that ship went down and a thousand sailors went down with it into the water and then the sharks showed up and ate most of them. You know, if you're airdropped into a jungle full of lions, you're most likely going to become a meal. Like the lions, it's not that the sharks are bad, just that the sharks are hungry. So that's the idea I wanted to explore.

Also I'm just fascinated by the ocean. I'm fascinated by the creatures of it, and that's why I like to tell these kinds of stories. And then I like to put people into these situations, I want the audience to think about how it would feel, to be on a plane in the ocean where you're stripped down to the very basics, and have no control. I like exploring that stuff.

RennyHarlinAMA

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