The only director Bill Murray would drop everything to work with: “You gotta have some faith”
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. John Ford and John Wayne. Hollywood history is full of great director-actor combinations; pairs of names that sell out theatres on their own merit.
When it comes to Wes Anderson, though, there are quite a few performers who could vie for the title of his best collaborator. Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, the list goes on. Having said all that, true Anderson fans know that there’s only one partner that deserves their place next to the long-haired auteur – Bill Murray.
The veteran funnyman might not have been there from the very start of Anderson’s career, but he’s more than made up for that. Since their first collaboration on Rushmore, Murray has been in a total of ten of his movies, only missing out on Asteroid City since they first got together. They’ve shared many great moments together and it doesn’t look like they’ll be calling it a day any time soon.
Despite their long-running working relationship, there’s only one Anderson movie in which Murray plays the main character – 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. A movie focused on a down-on-his-luck oceanographer searching for a mythical shark while reconnecting with his lost son doesn’t scream ‘box office dynamite’. So, why did Murray take the job? Because Anderson asked, that’s why.
“I don’t need a lot of explanation for things, and if I feel I need something explained, I ask,” he told Deseret News. “If you read the script and you didn’t know who was in charge, you would be much less confident. I sure as hell wouldn’t leave the country and go over there with (just) anybody. You gotta have some faith in who you’re with.”
Italy served as the primary filming location for this waterborne adventure. Anderson and his cast and crew travelled all over the country, from Rome to Naples to multiple locations on the Italian Riviera. While there have certainly been more gruelling filming schedules in much less picturesque locations, it was still a big commitment for Murray and the rest of the cast to up sticks. They believed in the project, which is more than could be said for the critics.
Initial reviews of The Life Aquatic were underwhelming. Many reviewers felt that it leaned too far into smug territory, its deadpan approach to humour ironically being too dry for a film set largely at sea. The box office figures weren’t great either, as it failed to earn back its $50 million budget. Eventually, though, people came around.
Now, like many of Anderson’s movies, it has a strong cult following that cannot wrap its head around why it wasn’t more successful in the first place. It’s far from the director’s best work, but it’s still worth a watch.
It might not have paid off financially or eventually critically to begin with, but Murray’s faith in Anderson was ultimately rewarded. Plus, he basically got a paid vacation to Italy and an excuse to wear a cool red hat. How could you possibly turn that down?
