For actor Bill Murray, accusations of bad behavior on and off the set are just like the premise of one in every of his best-known motion pictures, “Groundhog Day” — one thing that retains taking place over and over.
The newest instance? Murray acknowledged in an interview over the weekend with CNBC that Searchlight Pictures suspended manufacturing of his latest flick, “Being Mortal,” after he had a “difference of opinion” with a girl he was working with on the movie.
“I did something I thought was funny and it wasn’t taken that way,” Murray informed CNBC’s Becky Quick.
Murray, who is 71, didn’t establish the girl or go into element about what he did, however mentioned, “We are talking and we are trying to make peace with each other.” Searchlight Pictures has not recognized the girl and informed NBC News they might not remark on their investigation. The manufacturing firm additionally wouldn’t say whether or not or not Murray would proceed to be a part of the movie that was half-completed when it shut down manufacturing final month.
It was the primary time Murray weighed in on an incident that torpedoed what is supposed to be the directorial debut of comic Aziz Ansari, whose personal profession was derailed in 2018 by allegations of sexual misconduct.
In a press release to NBC News on the time, Ansari described it as “completely consensual.” But confronted with a public backlash, Ansari didn’t return to stand-up comedy till February 2019. Last month sources informed Deadline that the grievance filed on the set of Being Mortal was not made in opposition to Ansari.
The reviews surfacing just lately a few grievance investigated on the set of Murray’s movie, first reported final month by Deadline and later confirmed by NBC News, was simply the most recent black eye for a beloved actor and Saturday Night Live alum who rocketed to fame in ’80s comedian classics like “Ghostbusters” and “Caddyshack,” and who received vital acclaim and an Oscar nomination enjoying a lonely soul in “Lost in Translation.”
When the #MeToo motion took off and prime Hollywood actors and administrators discovered themselves being accused for sexually abusing subordinates and others, Murray warned in a 2018 interview with CNBC: “If people are monstrous, it comes back. Eventually it comes around.”
“People are getting their justice rather quickly,” he mentioned. “They’re getting it fast and there’s a big wave.”
That identical yr, Murray publicly voiced assist for the #MeToo motion.
“It’s not just a show business thing,” he mentioned. “If you walk down the street in New York City behind a woman, you see men walking at them and just devouring them with their eyes … I think I would stay inside a lot more if I were a woman.”
In 2007, Murray was accused of assault by his now ex-wife, Jennifer Butler Murray, who claimed in divorce papers that the actor allegedly assaulted her in November 2007 after which allegedly informed her that she was “lucky he didn’t kill her.”
His ex additionally alleged within the divorce papers that the actor abused pot and alcohol and trolled for sexual companions abroad and mentioned she fled along with her 4 sons from the couple’s New York residence and relocated to their seashore home in South Carolina.
“Bill Murray is deeply saddened by the breakup of his marriage with Jennifer,” the actor’s lawyer, John McDougall, mentioned in response on the time to the allegations within the divorce papers. “He and his wife made loving parents, and they are committed to the best interests of their children.”
Here are a few of the reported troubling episodes from Murray’s profession:
- In 2000, Murray clashed with actress Lucy Liu on the set of “Charlie’s Angels,” with Liu claiming Murray hurled “inexcusable and unacceptable” feedback at her. “I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it,” Liu mentioned later. She later mentioned in a Deadline interview that she reconciled with Murray. In a 2009 interview with The Times of London, he addressed the problem. “Look, I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional and working with me,” he mentioned. “When our relationship is professional, and you’re not getting that done, forget it.”
- “Charlie’s Angels” director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) claimed Murray head-butted him on the set of the identical movie. “Square in the head,” McG informed The Guardian newspaper in May 2009. “An inch later and my nose would have been obliterated.” Murray denied the declare in The Times of London interview. “That’s bulls—! That’s complete crap!” he responded. “I don’t know why he made that story up. He has a very active imagination.”
- Actor Richard Dreyfuss, who co-starred with Murray within the 1991 movie “What About Bob,” mentioned in a 2019 interview that Murray behaved like “an Irish drunken bully” on the set and as soon as threw an ashtray at him. Murray conceded that he and Dreyfuss “didn’t get along on the movie particularly, but it worked for the movie.” “I mean, I drove him nuts, and he encouraged me to drive him nuts,” Murray mentioned.
- Laura Ziskin, who helped produce “What About Bob?,” mentioned in a 2003 interview that she and Murray incessantly clashed on the set and at one level the actor threw her in a lake, albeit playfully. “Bill also threatened to throw me across the parking lot and then broke my sunglasses and threw them across the parking lot,” she mentioned. “I was furious and outraged at the time, but having produced a dozen movies, I can safely say it is not common behavior.” Murray didn’t remark on these allegations on the time.
- Murray labored along with his buddy Harold Ramis on the “Ghostbuster” motion pictures in addition to “Caddyshack” and “Meatballs.” But their friendship fell aside whereas Ramis was directing Murray in “Groundhog Day,” Ramis’ daughter wrote. “Bill was going through a difficult time in his personal life, and he and my dad were not seeing eye to eye on the tone of the film,” Violet Ramis Stiel wrote in “Ghostbuster’s Daughter: Life With My Dad, Harold Ramis,” which was excerpted in 2018 by People journal. They had a couple of arguments on set, together with one during which my dad uncharacteristically misplaced his mood, grabbed Bill by the collar, and shoved him up in opposition to a wall. Eventually, Bill simply fully shut my dad out … for the subsequent twenty‑plus years.” Stiel wrote that her father and Murray reconciled earlier than Ramis died. Murray by no means commented on the alleged argument with Ramis.
- In 1978, Murray and Chevy Chase, the SNL castmate he was employed to change, obtained right into a fistfight when Chase returned to the present as a visitor host. “You could understand, you know, there were these two bull mooses going at each other, so the testosterone was surging, and stuff happens,” then SNL castmember Jane Curtin recalled. Murray, in a 2012 interview, mentioned he and Chase had been pals once more. “It was really a Hollywood fight, a ‘Don’t touch my face!’ kind of thing,” Murray informed Empire. “It was an Oedipal thing, a rupture. Because we all felt mad he had left us, and somehow I was the anointed avenging angel who had to speak for everyone. But Chevy and I are friends now. It’s all fine.”