‘True Lies’: Bill Paxton Talks Playing Simon in 4K Bonus Features (Exclusive Clip)

Nearly 30 years after its release, True Lies is available in 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever at digital retailers and features a new behind-the-scenes look from the cast and crew. PopCulture.com obtained an exclusive clip of Bill Paxton talking about his character Simon. Paxton said he wanted to make sure he had the look of Simon down, leading to him talking about his character with director James Cameron. Jon Landau, the former head of production for 20th Century said Paxton (who died in 2017)  and Cameron were close friends and made movies together before they made it big. 

True Lies is one of six films from Cameron that is available for the first time on 4K UHD. The other five are The Abyss, Aliens, Titanic, Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water. True Lies will be available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray disc on Mar. 24, 2024, along with Aliens and The Abyss. In a statement, Cameron said, “There’s a world of emotions in revisting these films and I hope we’ve captured some of that in the new bonus materials we created for fans.”

True Lies debuted in theatres in 1994 and features Paxton, Andord Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Art Malik and Tia Carrere. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning a 70 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and tallying over $370 million worldwide at the box office. 

Earlier this year, Curtis spoke to IndieWire about filming the dangerous helicopter scene in True Lies. “All of that was real people, real places,” Curtis said. “The speed was real because you can’t do it slowly, you have to do it at speed. I asked for two things for both the helicopter stunt and all of the limousine stunt work: I am tethered to the limousine through a safety belt that is then tethered to a carabiner that is then tethered to a strap which is secured onto a piece of steel in the car. The concern in the limousine would be that I would be expelled — like, if for some reason the limousine hit the wall, that I would be catapulted out of it.”

Curtis also talked about being up to filming the scene under one condition. “My only condition was that there be a knife embedded in the upholstery of the limousine so that if for some reason that limousine went off the bridge — because we were driving really fast and banging up against the sides of the highway — you pop a toggle, the car flips, and you go over,” she said. “The only thing I didn’t want to do was go down with the limo into the water. And I wanted the strap to be made of seatbelt material, so that I could cut it loose and have my chances. And the exact same thing was in the helicopter.”