EXCLUSIVE: The biggest star at Sundance 2025 so far doesn’t even have a film at this year’s festival.
Bill Murray hit Park City this morning in an invite-only, low-key appearance on Main Street.
Of course, the Groundhog Day star being who he is, nothing about Murray’s sit-down with Elvis Mitchell at a Park City restaurant remained low-key for long. “I got to be careful because both of the directors are here,” Murray said when asked what he liked about two films he has in the hopper. “I was a local hire,” the Saturday Night Live vet added of his roles in two upcoming films, The Friend and The Phoenician Scheme.
“I have to confess I’ve been lazy,” Murray went on to say of his bent of late toward independent movies. “I eat what lands in my mouth,” he stated to big laughs from the audience.
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Harking back to his early career out of the Chicago Second City improv world in the 1970s, the agentless Murray stated that he learned a lot from those “ahead of me in the troughs” to aim to not make “bad choices.”
Going for a quick laugh, Murray responded to a SNL-related question from Mitchell with a “that show’s never gonna work.”
“I’m all alone up here,” the Lost in Translation actor quipped with perfect timing to more laughs.
He gave high praise to Bill Hader. “I’m floored by him, he worked harder and was more prepared … He did things that were always trying to be creative, every single sketch, he showed a lot of range. His energy was always there. He never dipped, kept the ball bouncing.” While Hader has spoken about his stage fear when doing SNL, Murray said that he never had any jitters on the show. He was always over the moon to get a line or two, whether it was playing cop #2 or garbageman #2.
One of Murray’s favorite films in his canon? 1991’s What About Bob? “I didn’t see it for 15 years and when I watched it, I said, ‘Damn, that was funny.’”
“Extraordinary premise from Alvin Sargent: a patient who follows his doctor on vacation. That was money in the bank. Great thing to go to work every day,” he said.
It was Sargent who came up with the concept. Tom Shulman was responsible for rewrites, but Murray mentioned that he never did any. Murray would get pages back and say, “These are the same pages that were here weeks and weeks ago.” Shulman was busy getting paid a ton of money on the Sean Connery movie The Medicine Man.
Murray spoke about meeting Hunter S. Thompson, who challenged him to do an underwater escape act. Murray played Thompson in the 1980 movie Where the Buffalo Roam. “You think you can escape?” Thompson asked the comedic actor once. “Yeah, I think I could,” answered Murray. Just before he was lowered in the lawn chair, Murray opted to go in the lower end of the pool. “If you’re ever tied to a chair, and you jump in a pool, if you stand up, even if you’re six feet tall, you won’t stand at six feet.” Murray said that Thompson “was more than” an acid-tripping drunk.
Murray has been on a festival tour as of late. He was at Telluride for the world premiere of his movie The Friend, where he also introduced Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. He was also with The Friend at Toronto. Bleecker Street has that movie, which is hitting theaters March 21.
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