The movie that made Bill Murray feel “slightly radioactive”
Taking a unique approach to stardom hasn’t done a thing to prevent Bill Murray from remaining in the public eye for over 40 years, despite the lengths he’s gone to in order to avoid the spotlight.
Making himself notoriously difficult to track down for most people who aren’t named Wes Anderson, the trickiest part about pitching Murray with a script or project is often finding him in the first place. Even in the wake of his biggest hits, the actor actively shuns the limelight in favour of retreating from Hollywood.
Already a recognisable name thanks to Saturday Night Live, Caddyshack, Stripes, and Tootsie, Ghostbusters nonetheless propelled Murray’s career to brand new heights in 1984 after Ivan Reitman’s classic supernatural comedy became a critical darling, commercial juggernaut, and merchandising behemoth.
Hot off the back of what was his most successful big screen outing by far, the opportunity to further his advance up the industry ladder was there for the taking. The only hurdle, which was admittedly a sizeable one, was that Murray wasn’t interested in seizing it.
Speaking with Roger Ebert, Murray – not entirely inaccurately – shared how he “thought Ghostbusters was the biggest thing that would ever happen to me”. As a result of its success, it became “such a big phenomenon” that the erstwhile Peter Venkman was left feeling “slightly radioactive”.
His preferred coping mechanism was to effectively run. “So I just moved away for a while, I lived in Europe for six months or so,” he continued, “And I was supposed to do a movie when I came back, and when I came back, and I saw the script I was supposed to do, I didn’t want to do it”.
As well as his rejection putting him “a whole season behind” in Hollywood terms, he “then went through a kind of funny thing”. Expanding on the seasonal concept, Murray said, “there are actual moviemaking seasons, you know, and the three weeks before every seasons I would get 20 phone calls a day from people wanting to do a movie, and there would be this incredible amount of pressure”.
By his own recollections, he’d get 30 phone calls on a Friday, but nobody would bother even trying on Monday after he’d ignored everyone’s advances, only to discover the parts in the movies he’d gone out of his way to avoid being contacted about had already been filled.
Ghostbusters was one of just four credits Murray notched in 1984, but following his sabbatical, he wouldn’t be spied on the silver screen again until Little Shop of Horrors released two years later, which was the only feature he appeared in between October 1984 and February 1988. In Murray’s world, unprecedented professional success is a sign that it’s time to leave Tinseltown behind for a while.
