"I'm a nut, but not just a nut."
We love Bill don’t we?!
By all accounts, Bill Murray is a strange guy. You might pick up on this by his movie roles or his talk show appearances. But there’s also some pretty compelling evidence in a book titled “The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray” by Robert Schnakenberg. One of the most entertaining aspects is how the book delves into the well-known fact about how much Murray hates agents and Hollywood representation.
“In 2000, he fired his agents — reportedly for calling him on the phone too often — and replaced them with an automated 800 number,” Schnakenberg writes. “Filmmakers who wish to pitch projects to Murray must leave a message on his voice mailbox, which he rarely checks. When he is interested in a script, Murray demands that it be faxed to him care of his local office supply store.” “This unique arrangement,” Schnakenberg says, “has resulted in Murray missing out on a number high-profile job offers.”
Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg originally wanted Murray to play Eddie Valiant in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), but neither could get in contact with him in time. Murray, in turn, has stated that when he read the interview, he was in a public place, but he still screamed his lungs out, because he would have definitely accepted the role.
Murray was considered and tested for the voice role of Sulley in "Monsters, Inc." (2001), but the director, Pete Docter, said that when the filmmakers decided to offer it to Murray, they were unable to make contact with him and took that to mean "No."
Sofia Coppola wrote the lead role of Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation" (2003, below), with Murray specifically in mind. She did not know the actor and even enlisted the help of her famous father, Francis Ford Coppola, to track down the sometimes quite elusive Murray. Once he finally read the script, though, he agreed to do it on the spot.
"I remember being in Japan 10 years ago for a golf tournament. I turned over a Kirin beer coaster, and there was Harrison Ford's picture. He's a guy who would never be caught dead doing a commercial here. He had a bottle in his hand and the most uncomfortable look on his face, like, 'I can't believe I'm shilling.' When Sofia Coppola, the director of 'Lost in Translation,' sent me the script, she included a photo and said, 'This is what I have in mind.' It was Brad Pitt in an ad for espresso in a can, and he had the same grimace: 'I can't believe I'm selling this can of coffee.' That influenced me when I had to do my own shtick."
(National Post/IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Bill Murray!
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