Every role Bill Murray missed out on because nobody could find him: “We took that to mean no”
In an age of smartphones, emails, instant messaging, video calls, and various other methods of 24-hour communication, it seems farcical to think that one of Hollywood’s most enduring A-list actors could ever be uncontactable. Here’s the thing, though: Bill Murray is not like other A-listers.
The iconic Ghostbusters star has always been a reclusive, slippery customer when he’s not on a movie set, and he’s never made it easy to get in touch with him. Over the years, this has led to absurd circumstances in which Murray has missed out on starring in major critically acclaimed hit movies simply because nobody could find him.
Murray’s ongoing disdain for people in the movie business being able to locate him goes back a long way. In Robert Schnakenberg’s The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray, the author revealed that Murray fired all his agents in 2000 after growing annoyed by their constant calls. Supposedly, he replaced them with an automated 800 number, which quickly filled up with desperate filmmakers pitching their movies through rambling answering machine messages.
Amusingly, though, Murray reportedly failed to check that answering machine with any regularity. In addition, even if he liked the sound of a script, he demanded that it be faxed to his local office supply shop instead of sent to him directly. “This unique arrangement has resulted in Murray missing out on a number of high-profile job offers,” Schnakenberg noted, to the surprise of no one.
In truth, the list of roles Murray never even heard about because he was incommunicado is extensive. Robert Downey Jr once revealed, “We wanted Bill to consider a role in Iron Man, but nobody could find him,” while The People Vs Larry Flynt director Miloš Forman claimed he called Murray several times, but the star never got back to him. Similarly, Noah Baumbach called and called about The Squid and the Whale to no avail, so he gave up, and Pixar tried for a long time to get him to sign up to voice Sully in Monsters Inc. When its calls fell on deaf ears, director Pete Docter quipped, “We took that to mean no.”
Even when people were convinced Murray wanted to be in their movie, it was never set in stone that it would actually happen. Bad Santa director Terry Zwigoff claimed Murray agreed to star as the titular drunk, abrasive mall Santa, but when the contracts were drawn up, he dropped off the face of the earth. “I left several messages on his answering machine,” Zwigoff grumbled, “but after a few weeks of hearing nothing, we eventually moved on.”
Perhaps the funniest reason Murray missed out on a role, though, was when Wes Anderson tried to convince him to star in his feature film debut, Bottle Rocket. Unfortunately, though, the script never found its way into Murray’s hands because he was indisposed at the time – and by “indisposed”, we mean “travelling the country in a Winnebago.” When Murray finally saw the film, though, he loved Anderson’s directorial style so much that he signed up for his next movie, Rushmore – followed by the filmmaker’s next eight movies in a row.
Interestingly, aside from Bottle Rocket—which he was able to make up for—Schnakenberg claimed the only movie Murray regretted missing out on because of his policy of being the most elusive man in Hollywood was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. In every other case, he’s always been perfectly happy to work when he wants to and ignore the industry completely when he doesn’t fancy it.
