The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray

by Robert Schnakenberg

  IMPROVISATION

  “I think that good actors always—or if you’re being good, anyway—you’re making it better than the script. That’s your fucking job. It’s like, ‘Okay, the script says this? Well, watch this. Let’s just roar a little bit. Let’s see how high we can go.’”

  INDEPENDENT FILM

  “I love independent films, but it’s fun to do studio movies too. You should do both. You don’t want to be like, ‘Oh, he’s an independent film guy.’ It sounds like he makes his own dresses or something, you know? It just doesn’t sound right.”

  LIFE

  “As I once said to one of my brothers, ‘This is your life, not a rehearsal.’ Somewhere there’s a score being kept, so you have an obligation to live life as well as you can, be as engaged as you can. The human condition means that we can zone out and forget what the hell we’re doing. So the secret is to have a sense of yourself, your real self, your unique self. And not just once in a while, or once a day, but all through the day, the week, and life. You know what they say: ‘Ain’t no try, ain’t nothing to it but to do it.’”

  MELANCHOLY

  “Melancholic and lovable is the trick, right? You’ve got to be able to show that you have these feelings… . A melancholy can be sweet. It’s not a mean thing, but it’s something that happens in life—like autumn.”

  MOATS

  “A moat can be a pretty good thing. It can be lovely. It keeps rodents away from the castle. It can have fish in it. Even fish that talk.”

  MONEY

  “Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It’s not for the acting, that’s for sure.”

  MOVIES

  “Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.”

  PARTIES

  “Parties are only bad when a fight breaks out, when men fight over women or vice versa. Someone takes a fall, an ambulance comes, and the police arrive. If you can avoid those things, pretty much all behavior is acceptable.”

  PRIVACY

  “I can deal with losing my own privacy, but it affecting my kids is what I regret. No one can prepare you for what happens with fame.”

  PUBLICITY

  “I think your best publicity is the work you do. My personal life shouldn’t be of interest to anyone, and to garner publicity with a picture of me and my dog or my barbecue, that makes no sense to me.”

  RELAXATION

  “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.”

  RETIREMENT

  “I’ve taken a couple of breaks. I’ve retired a couple of times. It’s great, because you can just say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m retired.’ And people will actually believe that you’ve retired. There are nutters out there that will go, ‘Oh, okay!’ and then leave you alone.”

  RICHES

  “I always like to say to people who want to be rich and famous, try being rich first. See if that doesn’t cover most of it. There’s not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a twenty-four-hour job.”

  RULES

  “Whenever you hear somebody has rules, you should run for the hills.”

  SUCCESS

  “I remember reading that success is when the people in your village come to you for one thing they need done. I thought that made sense. You’ve got to find a village where they’re missing something and do it. Because in this town—I heard this joke—in New York, even if you’re one in a million, there are ten people just like you.”

  TELEVISION

  “I can only take so much TV, because there is so much advice. I find people will preach about virtually anything—your diet, how to live your life, how to improve your golf. The lot. I have always had a thing against the Mister Know-It-Alls.”

  VICES

  “When you become an adult and get to pick your pleasures. They should be worth picking.”

  WORK

  “I’m basically lazy. I work really hard when I work, but I try to avoid work.”

  “Bill’s whole life is in the moment. He doesn’t care about what just happened. He doesn’t think about what’s going to happen. He doesn’t even book round-trip tickets. Bill buys one-ways and then decides when he wants to go home.”

  —Ted Melfi, director of St. Vincent

  “The most unkempt, fucked-up looking human I’d ever seen.”

  —Sean Kelly, National Lampoon Show writer, on his first impressions of Bill Murray

  “All the Marx Brothers rolled into one: He’s got the wit of Groucho, the pantomimic brilliance and lasciviousness of Harpo, and the Everyman quality of Chico.”

  —Harold Ramis

  “There’s a charming assholeness to Bill, and it’s how he really has gotten through life. When I knew him, that was kind of how I thought of him, as this charming, always seducing, asshole-y kind of guy. But asshole in the sense of old-fashioned asshole. Like, a jerk willing to make a fool of himself—willing to do anything in order to get the girl. And there’s something admirable about that, and there’s something that makes you want to punch somebody about that.”

  —Betty Thomas, actress, director, and Second City alum

  “He’s the best comic actor in the world by a mile.”

  —George Clooney

  “He’s a god to comedians. He’s like what a cow is in India.”

  —Nick Kroll

  “I love Bill, but mostly I feel compassion because he has such a hopeless and profound crush on me.”

  —Janeane Garofalo

  “I have nothing but admiration and affection for Bill. He still can be a surly character, to say the least. But ultimately, he’s a good guy.”

  —Chevy Chase

  “He’s got a complex and original range that puts him in a special category—a completely believable comic illuminator.”

  —Sydney Pollack

  “He was a force of nature. He was a movie star when he came onto this planet.”

  —Michael O’Keefe

  “He has a certain rare animal—snow leopard—quality. Kinda dangerous as well as exotic.”

  —Tilda Swinton

  “If you were reincarnated and had to be reborn into mortality, the Dalai Lama would probably be the most desired embodiment to be reborn in. I’d imagine that coming back as Bill Murray would be second.”

  —Del Close, legendary improv teacher

  “He can be difficult, but he’s worth it. You get so much bonus.”

  —Ivan Reitman

  “He’s a nutcase! He is a nutcase! If we were doing another [Garfield movie], Bill Murray would do it again.”

  —Jim Davis, creator of “Garfield”

  “He’s a dark guy. He’s a black hole in which many of our spaceships have been lost.”

  — Michael O’Donoghue

  “When Bill was onstage, he didn’t much care whether they liked him. Because of that, he had enormous integrity. When Bill’s good, it’s the same as when De Niro’s good.”

  —Lorne Michaels

  “Wherever he goes, he’s leaving a trail of hysteria behind him.”

  —Naomi Watts

  “I think he’s really attractive. Bill Murray is hot.”

  —Sofia Coppola

  “He wasn’t the pain in the ass I had heard he was. I expected a bad boy, but what I found was a really intelligent man who loved his work and expected everyone to give one hundred percent.”

  —Andie MacDowell

  “Bill is a smart man. Much smarter than some of the movies he’s done.”

  —Tim Robbins

  “He’s very mysterious.”

  —Wes Anderson

  “One of the world’s most appealing hipsters.”


  —David Denby, film critic

  “He would come on as a guest and I’d watch him from the sidelines, thinking, ‘How can he be so cool?’”

  —Will Ferrell, on Murray’s Saturday Night Live hosting appearances

  “He has a genuine outré gift: he makes you feel that his characters are bums inside —unconcerned and indifferent—and he makes that seem like a kind of grace.”

  —Pauline Kael

  “Bill is a dangerous brute with the fastest reflexes in Hollywood, but he is suave, and that is why I trust him even more than I trust all his brothers.”

  —Hunter S. Thompson

  “If Frank Capra had taken a little acid, he probably would have come up with Bill Murray.”

  —John Byrum, director of The Razor’s Edge

  “There was always a certain danger with Bill. You just never were exactly sure where he was going to go.”

  —Andrew Alexander, CEO of Second City

  “The big part of his appeal for grown-up men is that he personifies the wish to get away with everything. It’s disruption for the cosmic good.”

  —Howard Franklin, director of Quick Change and Larger Than Life

  “Bill is kind of a depressed guy, except when the camera’s rolling. Then he puts it all out there and tries to be funny and witty and a genius, but otherwise, he’s not that funny.”

  —P. J. Soles

  “Being a fan of Bill Murray never gets boring because he’s not bored. He’s more mercurial and yet somehow more available than ever. In a world where most careers are xeroxes of each other, his is uniquely his own.”

  —Cameron Crowe

  “Bill Murray is definitely the most creative improvisational actor I’ve ever worked with.”

  —Bob Tischler, producer of The National Lampoon Radio Hour

  “The beauty of Bill is if he sees something he doesn’t like, he will rip into that person. I have seen him go off on people, but I’ve never seen him go off on someone who didn’t deserve it.”

  —Peter Farrelly

  “Bill Murray is to me what calculators are to math. I never knew math before calculators, and I never knew life before Bill Murray. Being a child of the ’80s, his movies were always around me, and I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t Bill Murray.”

  —Jason Schwartzman

  “I used to feel guilty about behaving badly, and I met Bill, and it feels so much better.”

  —Harvey Weinstein

  “He’s truly a godlike, iconic hero to me.”

  —Quentin Tarantino

  “Bill is a social anarchist.”

  —John McNaughton, director of Mad Dog and Glory

  “Some people photo-bomb pictures. Bill Murray photo-bombs life.”

  —Anonymous Internet commenter

  Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)

  Meatballs (1979)

  Shame of the Jungle (1979)

  Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979)

  Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

  B.C. Rock aka The Missing Link (1980)

  Caddyshack (1980)

  Loose Shoes (1980)

  Stripes (1981)

  Tootsie (1982)

  Ghostbusters (1984)

  Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

  The Razor’s Edge (1984)

  Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

  She’s Having a Baby (1988)

  Scrooged (1988)

  Ghostbusters II (1989)

  Quick Change (1990)

  What about Bob? (1991)

  Groundhog Day (1993)

  Mad Dog and Glory (1993)

  Ed Wood (1994)

  Kingpin (1996)

  Larger Than Life (1996)

  Space Jam (1996)

  The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

  Wild Things (1998)

  With Friends Like These … (1998)

  Rushmore (1998)

  Cradle Will Rock (1999)

  Hamlet (2000)

  Charlie’s Angels (2000)

  Osmosis Jones (2001)

  Speaking of Sex (2001)

  The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

  Lost in Translation (2003)

  Coffee and Cigarettes (2004)

  Garfield: The Movie (2004)

  This Old Cub (2004)

  The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

  Broken Flowers (2005)

  The Lost City (2006)

  Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006)

  The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

  Get Smart (2008)

  City of Ember (2008)

  The Limits of Control (2009)

  Zombieland (2009)

  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

  Ballhawks (2010)

  Get Low (2010)

  Passion Play (2010)

  Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

  Hyde Park on Hudson (2013)

  A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2013)

  The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

  The Monuments Men (2014)

  St. Vincent (2014)

  Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

  Aloha (2015)

  Rock the Kasbah (2015)

  BOOKS

  Boyle, Deidre. Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997

  Carroll, E. Jean. Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Dutton, 1993.

  Cohen, Karl F. Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2004.

  Davis, Tom. Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of “SNL” from Someone Who Was There. New York: Grove Press, 2009.

  Fruchter, Rena. I’m Chevy Chase… and You’re Not. London: Virgin Books, 2013.

  Greenfield, Robert. Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia. New York: William Morrow, 1996.

  Griggs, Jeff. Guru: My Days with Del Close. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005.

  Gurdjieff, G. I. Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. New York: Penguin, 1999.

  Hill, Doug, and Jeff Winograd. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of “Saturday Night Live.” New York: Vintage Books, 1987.

  Johnson, Kim Howard. The Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2008.

  Karlen, Neal. Slouching toward Fargo: A Two-Year Saga of Sinners and St. Paul Saints at the Bottom of the Bush Leagues with Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie and Me. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.

  Karp, Josh. A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2008.

  Levy, Shawn. De Niro: A Life. New York: Crown Archetype, 2014.

  Lidz, Frank. Fairway to Hell: Around the World in 18 Holes. New York: ESPN Books, 2008.

  Maier, Robert. Low Budget Hell: Making Underground Movies with John Waters. Davidson, NC: Full Page Publishing, 2011.

  Martin, Scott. The Book of “Caddyshack”: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Greatest Movie Ever Made. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2007.

  Murray, Bill, with George Peper. Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

  Nugent, Benjamin. American Nerd: The Story of My People. New York: Scribner, 2008.

  Patinkin, Sheldon. The Second City: Backstage at the World’s Greatest Comedy Theater. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2000.

  Perrin, Dennis. Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O’Donoghue. New York: Avon Books, 1998.

  Rubin, Danny. How to Write “Groundhog Day.” Gainesville, FL: Triad Publishing Company, 2012.

  Rush, George, with Joanna Molloy. Scandal: A Manual. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013.

  Shales, Tom, and James Andrew Miller. Live from New York: An Uncensored History of “Saturday Night Live,” as Told by Its Stars, Writers and Guests. New York: Back Bay Books, 2003.

  Shields, David. Enough about You: Notes toward the New Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

  Simmons,
Matty. Fat, Drunk, & Stupid: The Inside Story behind the Making of “Animal House.” New York: St. Martin’s, 2012.

  Stein, Ellin. That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick: The National Lampoon and the Comedy Insurgents Who Captured the Mainstream. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.

  Stone, Steve, with Barry Rozner. Where’s Harry? Steve Stone Remembers His Years with Harry Caray. Dallas: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2001.

  Streeter, Michael. Nothing Lost Forever: The Films of Tom Schiller. Albany, GA: Bear-Manor Media, 2005.

  Whitmer, Peter O. When the Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Hyperion, 1993.

  PERIODICALS

  Borrelli, Christopher. “Sister Act.” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 2009.

  Breznican, Anthony. “Zen and the Art of Casting Bill Murray in Your Movie.” Entertainment Weekly, August 20, 2014.

  Brownfield, Paul. “What about Bill?” Los Angeles Times, February 29, 2004.

  Chase, Chris. “Bill Murray: More Than Just a Funnyman.” Cosmopolitan, December 1984.

  Conrad, Harold. “At Large with Bill Murray.” Smart, July–August 1989.

  Coyle, Jake. “No Worries: Bill Murray Reflects on Life, Career.” Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2014.

  Crouse, Timothy. “The Rolling Stone Interview: Bill Murray.” Rolling Stone, August 16, 1984.

  Elder, Robert K. “Bill Murray on Sky Diving, Movie, Politics.” Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2008.

  Felton, David. “Bill Murray: Maniac for All Seasons.” Rolling Stone, April 20, 1978.

  ——. “When the Weird Turn Pro.” Rolling Stone, May 29, 1980.

  Friend, Tad. “Comedy First.” New Yorker, April 19, 2004.