Wes Anderson once carried a briefcase of cash across Europe at Bill Murray’s request: “It was for a man named Luigi”
If Wes Anderson calls, Bill Murray is virtually guaranteed to drop everything and come running, which speaks volumes to their personal and professional relationship when the actor is notoriously difficult to reach, taking an admirably old-fashioned approach to separating the wheat from the chaff.
It’s an arduous process even trying to get into contact with Murray, but once any actor or filmmaker gets on his good side, they tend to remain there for the long haul. Anderson, Sofia Coppola, and Jim Jarmusch are just three who can call him a regular collaborator, even if the former is in a class of his own.
Anderson appreciates Murray’s uniqueness as both a person and a performer, and they’ve become synonymous over the last three decades. It’s not a bond that ends when the cameras stop rolling, either, with the Academy Award-winning auteur admitting that he’s even embarked on a continental odyssey to do the Ghostbusters legend a solid.
It sounds like something ripped right from one of Anderson’s signature flights of fancy and whirlwinds of whimsy but with the shoe on the other foot. With Murray unable to carry out the request himself, Anderson boarded a train in Venice en route to Rome, carrying a briefcase that contained €10,000 in cash.
Realistically, the entire endeavour could have been handled instantly by a simple bank transfer, but that’s hardly in keeping with Anderson’s aesthetic. Instead, he gladly hopped on the train to travel over 300 miles across Italy when his frequent muse was unavailable, a trip that deserved to be documented based entirely on how much it jives with the duo’s frequent descents into cinematic surrealism.
“Yes, it’s true,” Anderson told Time Out when pressed on whether it was a true story or merely the latest in a long line of fabrications concocted to enhance Murray’s mystique further. “It was for a man called Luigi, and the money was some back rent or deposit for a flat Bill rented. But I should say that it’s not hard to carry €10,000. It doesn’t take a whole suitcase.”
It certainly enhances the mental imagery that he did decide to take a whole suitcase, though, with the anecdote conjuring memories of classic noir stereotypes with an Anderson twist. Cracking open the cargo in a dimly lit and smoky room with only a man named Luigi for company, hoping to settle an outstanding debt in a country Hollywood has popularised as the origin point for onscreen organised crime.
That’s probably not how it happened, but let’s just pretend that it did because it’s better that way. Most people would probably say, ‘Do it yourself’, when a friend gauges their interest in taking a train for hundreds of miles across unfamiliar land to ensure Luigi got paid, but Anderson was happy to do it upon Murray’s request.
