Frank Oz was “very upset” at being forced to work with Bill Murray: “I wanted somebody else”
While there are no doubt many directors who’d love to work with Bill Murray, thanks to his standing as an iconic comedy veteran, there are probably just as many who won’t go near him because of his reputation.
Murray has rubbed people the wrong way since his Saturday Night Live days, and those days still aren’t over. Sometimes it’s entirely his fault, sometimes it’s got nothing to do with him, and in some cases, he and a co-star, filmmaker, and producer meet in the middle to butt heads.
Hollywood is awash with performers on both sides of the camera who can’t speak highly enough of the actor, but it’s also laden with folks who couldn’t think of anything worse than working with him again. One director was even forced to direct him against their will, and they weren’t happy about it.
These days, Murray doesn’t want to do anything he doesn’t want to do. The hardest part is, of course, finding him, with his decades-long tenure as a star meaning that he’s happy to sit back, relax, and enjoy his vast wealth, all while his mythical 1-800 number gets inundated with phone calls and tenuous offers.
In the mid-1980s, any movie worth its salt would kill to have Murray on board. With Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie, and Ghostbusters among his recent credits, his name alone was viewed as a guaranteed boost at the box office, with audiences flocking to see the sardonic funnyman deliver his latest deadpan performance.
However, when he was cast in a small role in Frank Oz’s Little Shop of Horrors, the filmmaker was furious. He had his own candidate in mind for Arthur Denton, but was overruled by producer David Geffen without even being in the loop. As he recalled to The Hollywood Reporter, it was a decision that didn’t go down too well.
“I did not cast Bill,” he declared. “I wanted to cast somebody else, but David had already cast Bill. I got very upset, not that Bill had been cast, but David and I had an agreement that we both sign off on whoever was cast. We had a little problem there, but David agreed he would not do that again.”
It was nowhere near a leading role, with Murray’s contributions amounting to scant minutes of screentime, but Oz never wanted him to begin with. The actor also improvised all of his dialogue, which may have gotten under the director’s skin, seeing as someone he didn’t want in the picture had no interest in sticking to the script.
As far as first-world filmic problems go, being forced to work with Bill Murray against your will isn’t a particularly big one. Still, Oz’s legs were cut from underneath him by Geffen, who pounced when he discovered one of comedy’s biggest names was ready, willing, and available to board Little Shop of Horrors, even if the person directing the thing would rather he didn’t renege on their handshake deal to cast the film as a team.
