What People Who Have Worked With Bill Murray Said About Him

The classic comedy Groundhog Day follows a cynical weatherman, Bill Murray, who is reliving the same day over and over. Harold Ramis, who directed the film, also makes an appearance in it as the neurologist. This was the fifth collaboration between the two - including the comedies Caddyshack, Stripes, and the first two Ghostbusters - and Ramis and Murray had become good friends through working on projects together. 

However, some bad blood developed between them during the production of Groundhog Day. Despite having chemistry on-screen, the situation was much tenser backstage. Ramis wanted the film to be a comedy, while Murray wanted to take a more philosophical approach. Due to their differences on the genre of the movie, after it was filmed, the two decided to end their decades' long friendship.

Though this was the main reason for the fallout, according to an interview with The New Yorker, Ramis admitted to Murray being hard to work with, saying:

At times, Bill was just really irrationally mean and unavailable; he was constantly late on set. What I’d want to say to him is just what we tell our children: "You don’t have to throw tantrums to get what you want. Just say what you want."

Anjelica Huston and Bill Murray starred alongside one another in the 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The movie, filmed mostly in Italy, follows renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou (Murray) as he seeks vengeance on a shark that killed one of his crew members. Huston plays his estranged wife Eleanor in the film.

In her 2014 autobiography, A Story Told Lately: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York, Huston touched on the subject of filming with Murray, saying:

He was a sh*t to me on Life Aquatic. The first week I was there, we were all in this little hotel, and he invited the entire cast to go and have dinner, except me. And everyone came down for dinner, a little dog-faced about my not being invited, and they were all like, "Oh, you know, we don’t really want to go." That was worse than anything... 

I think we met again in Florence, because that movie was shot all over Italy, and we were doing a scene at Gore Vidal’s house in Ravello, and he said, "Hey, how’ve you been? I missed you." I said, "You’re full of sh*t. You didn’t miss me." He looked all confused for a moment. He’s been a little nicer to me since. He showed up at my husband’s funeral. He couldn’t have been nicer that day. He showed up. A lot of people didn’t.

Emma Stone and Bill Murray starred alongside one another in the 2015 film Aloha. The pair were also co-stars in Zombieland in 2009. During filming for Aloha, Stone had some health-related issues that caused her fatigue and sadness. Murray took it upon himself to cheer Stone up by buying her gifts and performing other small gestures.

In an interview with Yahoo, Stone recalled Murray's acts of kindness, saying:

I think Bill Murray was a little bit worried about me during Aloha because I had a really bad acne problem that they [edited] out of the movie [in post-production] because I was having some sleep issues. But seriously, on like a daily basis, he would bring me nice little presents. He would go to a concert and bring me a key chain, or he would go to a store and bring me Maui Onion potato chips... a visor, some slippers. It was pretty sweet.

The 1991 film What About Bob? focuses on the awkward and uncomfortable tension between a therapist, played by Richard Dreyfuss, and his patient, portrayed by Bill Murray. Though their on-screen relationship seemed to be tight-knit, off-screen the two were far from it.

During a 2019 Role Recall interview, Dreyfuss voiced his displeasure over working with Murray, saying:

He was an Irish drunken bully, I didn't talk about it for years. Bill just got drunk at dinner... He came back from dinner [one night] and I said, "Read this [script tweak], I think it's really funny." And he put his face next to me, nose-to-nose. And he screamed at the top of his lungs, "Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!" 

There was no time to react, because he leaned back and he took a modern glass-blown ashtray. He threw it at my face from [only a couple feet away]. And it weighed about three quarters of a pound. And he missed me. He tried to hit me. I got up and left.

After watching Bill Murray and Chevy Chase star alongside one another in Caddyshack, it seemed as if the two had an extremely close bond. However, this was not always the case. While filming together on the set of Saturday Night Live in 1978, things took a sour turn for the duo when Murray confronted Chase, telling him that "everyone hated him."

This screaming match then ignited a physical fight between the two actors. According to an article on Biography: 

Just before the show was set to air, Chase confronted Murray in Belushi's dressing room and challenged him to a fight. Murray lunged and Belushi leaped between the two larger men, drawing most of the punishment as the fists were flying.

SNL alums Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman recalled the incident on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen:

It was sad and painful and awful... It was that same kind of tension you would get in a family... It was uncomfortable. You could understand, you know, there were these two bull moose going at each other. The testosterone was surging... I think they both knew the one thing that they could say to one another that would, you know, hurt the most.

The two were able to put things to bed, however, and a year and half later filmed Caddyshack.

After starring together in Ghostbusters in 1984, Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray stayed close friends. Though she had starred in many comedies prior to Ghostbusters, Weaver wanted to "properly prepare" herself for a scene where she was going to see something terrifying.

According to Weaver, however, Murray came and helped her prepare in a totally different way:

I’m still giggling about the fact Billy came up to me. It was maybe the second scene. I was preparing, because I had been to drama school. Now, I was supposed to re-experience the terror dogs in the refrigerator. I just saw some in there actually before this Zoom. But he came over - and I don’t know if you remember this Bill - but you went, "What are you doing?" I went, "I’m preparing." You went, "You’re what?" I said, "I’m preparing." You started to tickle and shake me and really you can’t do comedy if you’re gonna prepare. It’s ridiculous.