The only directors who understand Bill Murray, according to Bill Murray
Love him or loathe him, it’s a well-known fact that Bill Murray can be a bit of a nightmare.
In fact, even “nightmare” feels too soft to describe the accounts from performers who’ve publicly likened working with the actor to a hellscape of bullying, harsh criticism, and constant conflict. Still, as is often the case in Hollywood, talent keeps doors open, and there’s no denying Murray’s talent.
There’s an entire article here on Far Out dedicated to the many people who have publicly expressed their dislike for Bill Murray. In a media-trained world where celebrities are encouraged to avoid conflict and stay tight-lipped to protect their careers, the fact that so many are willing to speak out against a former co-star or casting decision says a lot.
After working with Murray on What About Bob, Richard Dreyfuss called the actor nothing more than “a drunken bully”, recalling a time when the star leaned into him in a restaurant and yelled, “’Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!’ There was no time to react because he leaned back and took a modern glass-blown ashtray. He threw it at my face from only a couple of feet away”.
Lucy Liu, meanwhile, accused Murray of “unacceptable and inexcusable” behaviour on the set of Charlie’s Angels, while Scarlett Johansson recalled how, during the making of Lost In Translation, “Everybody was on tenterhooks around him, including our director and the full crew, because he was dealing with his…stuff”.
But Murray can more than dish it out, too, as he said of his own movie, Scrooged, and its director Richard Donner, “He shot a big, long, sloppy movie”. So, for a man who is quick to jump to critique and so happy to be cruel, praise is a big thing.
There are certain directors, though, who will forever be free from Murray’s scorn, standing out as his all-time favourites to work with and, in his eyes, the only ones who truly get him. To him, that’s the key to not only getting good work out of him, but getting a good person.
“I remember a friend said to me a while back: ‘You have a reputation’. And I said: ‘What?’ And he said: ‘Yeah, you have a reputation of being difficult to work with’. But I only got that reputation from people I didn’t like working with, or people who didn’t know how to work, or what work is,” he said in defence of his actions.
“Jim, Wes and Sofia, they know what it is to work, and they understand how you’re supposed to treat people,” he said, picking out Jim Jarmusch, Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola as the three directors who understand him. It’s clearly something he cares about a lot, given that he’s worked with both Jarmusch and Anderson repeatedly, starring in two Jarmusch movies and a staggering ten projects for Anderson.
However, given Johansson’s reflections of the time on set, it doesn’t feel like a surprise that Coppola hasn’t called him back up.
