The only actor who ever left Bill Murray starstruck: “I was gobsmacked”
There’s a laconic brilliance to Bill Murray that is hard to shake.
Even as is happening right now, the actor is more routinely beleaguered by moments of unsavoury on-set behaviour or unwelcome treatment of his relationships with other stars, Murray has a laidback nonchalance that suggests he will always try to limbo through life.
And, let’s be honest, that kind of behaviour is intoxicating in today’s world, where there’s a good chance that your mistakes can and will be caught on camera. It’s not to say that Murray has always been without reproach, far from it. Some of his interpersonal relationships have been publicly, and rightly, shamed for his part in them. But just like the tequila shots he seems to continuously serve, they have an allure that is hard to ignore, even if they are tantamount to poison.
It’s why Murray became such an icon in the 1970s with Saturday Night Live, why he maintained an anti-hero image in the 1980s and enjoyed a pre-meme resurgence in the 21st century, as he popped up at Wu-Tang Clan shows or randomly appeared at weddings or hired an agent who was deaf to answer his phone. Bill Murray has made a lifetime of adventures by seemingly not giving a shit.
But, the truth is, he really does. At least about art, he does. Famously noting that one painting helped to rescue him from depression, and once proclaiming folk legend John Prine as a similar auditory deity, Murray has always shared his appreciation for the arts. It is from within the arts that the only person to ever truly stop Murray in his tracks arises: Cary Grant.
One of the most beloved and accomplished actors of Hollywood’s first golden generation of actors, Grant was as charming as he was dashingly handsome. Add to this a sincerity that had rarely been seen on screen before, and it is easy to see how Grant became an icon for a generation of movie lovers, including Bill Murray. When asked by Empire if he had ever been truly starstruck, his answer was simple: “Yes, as a matter of fact, once. Cary Grant.”
It would appear that the jovial and usually horizontal Murray was left in awe when coming across the movie hero, Grant. As he continued: “I went to dinner with my agent—I was a movie star, a big shot in my mind—and there across the restaurant was Cary Grant. I was gobsmacked.”
But, rather than make his way over and introduce himself, Murray played it cool: “It was everything I could do to not get up and walk over to his table. But I didn’t. I just held it together. And as he left the restuarant, he gave me a look that said, ‘That was cool. I know what you were doing. i know what you felt. And you sat here and didn’t do it. And that was cool.'”
Now, if you’re a cynic, you might easily assume that Murray was dreaming of his ideal scenario when imagining the monologue behind Grant’s single look, but he seemed to have confirmed it. “I thought, ‘I did the right thing’. Later I met someone who told me, ‘Yeah, he knew you and he liked you. He thought your movies were good.'”
Whether that exactly confirms it, remains to be known, but one thing is for sure, Grant was as intoxicated by Murray as millions of audience members were.
