Kate Beckinsale greets fans outside the 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' studios in Los Angeles, Calif. (WENN.COM)

British actress Kate Beckinsale has invited action star Bruce Willis to stand guard outside her home in a bid to scare off her teenage daughter's potential suitors.

The Van Helsing star has been raising daughter Lily with director husband Len Wiseman in Los Angeles ever since her split from the girl's father Michael Sheen in 2003, and she admits she approached Willis - a father to four girls - on the set of her partner's Live Free or Die Hard movie and asked for advice about keeping her daughter's boyfriends at bay.

She tells America's Allure magazine, "I remember Len talking to Bruce Willis when Len did Live Free or Die Hard, and I think Bruce did some terrifying things when his daughter started having a boyfriend. Len and I asked him, 'When Lily starts having boyfriends, will you come over, too? We'll all stand on the doorstep (and) scare the s**t out of them.'"

However, if Willis is ever too busy, Beckinsale is confident her new role as an assassin in upcoming sci-fi film Total Recall will be enough of a scare tactic: "Maybe now I don't need Bruce. Now that I'm a villain, I can go solo."