Bill Murray reflected on the allegations and eventual $100,000 settlement that derailed and subsequently shuttered Disney’s Searchlight Pictures adaptation of Being Mortal back in 2022.
In a new interview with the New York Times‘ podcast The Daily, the Groundhog Day actor discussed how it’s “rough stuff” to portray crummy characters, like his roles in On the Rocks and The Friend, his latest release opposite Naomi Watts.
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“When you’ve performed as a horrible creep, you know that ‘Hey, I have been that horrible creep and not seen it and not been aware of it,’” he said.
The comment then prompted the interviewer to question Murray about what happened on the erstwhile set of Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut, which also featured cast members like Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer.
“I don’t go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened on Being Mortal,” he began. Continuing, he added, “I thought I was trying to make peace, I ended up, in my mind, being barbecued. Someone that I worked with, had lunch with on various days of the week and so forth. It was Covid, we were all wearing masks and we were all just stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. And I don’t know what prompted me to do it, it’s something that I had done to someone else before and I thought it was funny and every time it happened it was funny. I was wearing a mask and I gave her a kiss and she was wearing a mask. It wasn’t like I touched her, it was just [makes smooching sound], I gave her a kiss through a mask, through another mask, to another person. And she wasn’t a stranger.”
The Oscar nominee said, “It still bothers me because that movie was stopped by the, whatever they call — the human rights, the HR of the Disney corporation — which is probably a little bit more strident than some other countries. It turned out there [were] preexisting conditions and all this kind of stuff, I’m like, ‘What?’ How is anyone supposed to know anything like that? There was to be no conversation, there was nothing, no peacemaking, nothing. And just went to this lunatic arbitration.”
When asked if he took anything away from the experience, Murray responded, “You know, you can teach an old dog new tricks. But I just thought it was a disappointment. It was a great disappointment because I thought I knew someone and I did not. And I certainly thought it was light and I thought it was funny. And to me it’s still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on, it’s still stupid. That’s all it was.”
Murray further defended the action, saying he was attempting to bring “lightness” to a film shoot exploring a “miserable” subject matter. (Being Mortal was based on Atul Gawande’s eponymous nonfiction book about end-of-life and hospice care.)
When the interviewer also brought up past accounts of Murray being difficult to work with on set (Lucy Liu recently discussed her experience), Murray also shrugged those off. Addressing an allegation that he threw an ashtray at Richard Dreyfuss on the set of 1991’s What About Bob?, Murray countered that it was aimed more so at the ceiling and that the story was “never gonna be true.”
“If I’d have thrown it Dreyfuss, I’d have hit him,” he said. (For his part, Dreyfuss has said in recent years that he is ready to forgive the actor.)
Addressing Geena Davis‘ claims of impropriety, Murray called them “outrageous.” When the Times journalist said he didn’t need to “run through the list,” the former Ghostbusters star added, “When someone has an episode like mine on this Being Mortal thing, the world goes searching for more proof that this person is a monster — an absolute monster. Well, I’ve had interactions with hundreds of thousands of people over 40, 50 years. Now, you can come up with half a dozen. If you really worked, you’d probably come up with a couple dozen,” implying that the on-set stories are not representative of the totality of his personality.
Murray has previously addressed the suspension of Being Mortal. In 2022, immediately following the events in April, he told CNBC, “I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way. The company, the movie studio, wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out, investigate it, and so they stopped the production. But as of now, we’re talking and we’re trying to make peace with each other. I think that’s where the real issue is, between our peace. We’re both professionals. We like each other’s work. We like each other, I think, and if you can’t really get along and trust each other, there’s no point in going further working together or making a movie as well.”
The post Bill Murray Says ‘Being Mortal’ Allegations Led People To Go “Searching For More Proof” That He Is A “Monster” appeared first on Deadline.
