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From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. In Bill Murray's new movie, The Friend, which is based on a great novel by Sigrid Nunez, he plays Walter, Walter's best friends with Iris, played by Naomi Watts. Through a surprising course of events, Iris winds up having to take in Walter's great Dane.
By the way, Iris lives alone in a modest apartment in Manhattan, so not exactly ideal for a dog the size of a small horse and not exactly nice of Walter. Like so many of Murray's late career characters, Walter is funny and charismatic, but he's also kind of a...
He's resentful and self-centered, and he's caused some real damage. Now, I'm a huge Bill Murray fan, and I sometimes imagine those more recent roles as kind of like alternate world versions of the comedy characters that made him a superstar.
Frankman in Ghostbusters or Phil Connors in Groundhog Day to pick just two examples. They could be selfish and even cruel, but in the end, they always get away with it. Maybe this is a little too much cosmic thinking on my part, but it's almost as if latter-day Bill... characters are suffering the karmic payback owed to his earlier ones. That tension
between being beloved and leaving damage behind him, is something that's come up in Murray's off-screen life, too. Just a few years ago, in 2022, he was alleged to have behaved inappropriately with a female staff member on the set of the film Being Mortal. She said that he straddled her and kissed her through masks, which they were both wearing as part of COVID protocols. The production was shut down, and eventually they reached a center.
Directors and co-stars like Geena Davis, Lucy Liu, Richard Dreyfuss, and Harold... slightly, not always the easiest to work with. So how do all these sides of Bill Murray fit together? Well, at a hotel in Manhattan, accompanied by my producer Annabelle and a publicist named Charlie,
I'm David. I'm Bill. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Okay. You know this is going to last 60 to 90 minutes? I did, yeah. Hi, Annabelle. Hi, Annabelle. I'm Bill. Are we on TV or is it just talking? Just talking. Oh, good. Oh, you guys want anything? They ask you if you want a cocktail. Do you want a cocktail? Yes, it is. Please have a seat and I will just adjust this to make you comfortable.
We were just on the Doggist. Oh, I don't know about that. I didn't either until this week, which is a, I don't know if it's a podcast, a TV show, or a scam, but there's a guy that walks around with TV cameras and takes pictures of dogs on the street. And films it and says, can I take a picture of your dog? And starts talking to the dog owner and gets all this information and all this.
life about people on the street and their dog and how they live with their dog and what kind of dog it is. That seems nice. It was pretty cool, actually. Would it be helpful if I gave you a little spiel at the beginning? Like about what we're doing? Do you feel like you need some... A spiel? A spiel. Give me a spiel. So this is for the New York Times where we have a recurring interview feature we call The Interview. And I know you're doing this at the end of a long...
probably kind of tedious day. So I appreciate that you're doing it. It's okay. I can do it. I mean, we're just talking. It's not like I got to work. I don't have to get particularly dressed up. I'm sorry. What's your name? Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm bad on names. That's all right. Okay. You don't want, you don't want like.
Cookies or anything like that? Do you want a drink? Would you be more comfortable? No, no, no. Would you like a drink? You know, I kind of, but I don't want to bother anyone. Hey, try it. What kind of drink do you like to have at this time of day? Do you want something? Why not? It's just we three, four. But we can make Charlie drink too. Maybe like an old-fashioned?
That's my second. If he can make a lion's tail, is it a real bartender kind of guy? We don't know. I'll take an old-fashioned after if he can't make a lion's tail just because. that's man yeah it's a bourbon drink also so you're we're going to be in the same ball all right perfect annabelle are we ready to start First, can you tell me what's in a lion's tail? We just ordered drinks. It has simple syrup. Yeah. Least important. It has lime. It has Jamaican dram, and it has bourbon.
And it's cold. I make it cold. Sounds good. It's tasty. You know, at the Times earlier today, your co-star in The Friend, the dog, was in the building getting its photo taken. Yeah. Well, it's a striking, he is a striking dog. He's 150 pounds. He's a great Dane. His name is Bing. Bing. And he lives in Iowa, about 40 miles from Des Moines. And after a nationwide search, he was chosen as the dog of the moment.
He was not wearing a tight sweater or anything. He was just the most capable dog. He was an extremely well-trained dog and beautiful to look at, of course. I think you only have one or maybe two scenes with Bing in the movie. Right. But I felt like even in that brief time on screen, it looked to me like...
You kind of got a kick out of the dog. And in a weird way, it reminded me of, bear with me, of Larger Than Life, the movie in which you co-starred with an elephant, and then not to insult children. But I then rewatched What About Bob? and there's a dinner scene and it looks like you're just enjoying making the kids laugh. And it made me wonder what's fun about working with sort of... non-professional actors or unseasoned actors.
Okay, that's a good, hard question. And I got to drink a little coffee before I try to answer that. Let's see. Well, the elephant and the dog... are unusual in that they're consistent. They have their nature, and that is it. They're in their nature all the time. So the elephant I had an extraordinary time with, and I always say it's the only coaster I ever cried over when I left.
You know, I gave her a bath with a hose and I cried like a baby because she was the most beautiful coaster I ever had. The smartest coaster I ever had. And... The only one I miss, you know. She was extraordinary. And incredibly intelligent. Unbelievably amazing. You could sense the intelligence. Absolutely. Absolutely, where you kind of go like, uh-oh, the one on four legs is ahead of me.
So that's a challenge to show up. You know, every time I'd look at that animal, I would be reminded, like, well... Ty's being Ty. Why don't you try and be Bill and see if you can get it going. Let's go. So it was like that with her and with the dog, with Bing, the same thing. If something happened to you, if something actually occurred to you, and it happens in the movie.
where things happen, scenes take place, and you see the dog react to it. When I first saw the first cut of it, I said, are you kidding? Is this dog like... Stanislavski, how the hell is this dog doing this? It was crazy. The dog actually... Come on in. It's an emergency. Oh, boy. It was fun for me to be meeting the dog because I was really meeting the dog. So I was being...
authentic anyway. I wasn't being like trying to be a certain way to get the dog to behave a certain way. I was actually meeting the dog. Well, cheers. Cheers. We just have some drinks here. I hope our bosses don't care about this. Wait, can I ask, maybe a bit of a... a question that comes at kind of an angle to what we were just talking about. But when you're talking about Bing and the elephant, whose name was...
Tie. Tie. And how they play the scene and how they're sort of consistent. When you are in a scene with a human... Are you also looking for consistency from the person in that scene? What are you looking for? No. I know that sounds like, how could you like it in an animal and not a human? My greatest fear, or one thing I try to... Not exactly forbid, but try to avoid. In a movie, you do a bunch of takes. You try it a few times.
And you do it differently because either you didn't like it or there was a mistake made, an error, the cameraman wants to change the light, something different. You do it, sometimes you can do it just to get into the feel of it. It takes you a few to get going. The way I sort of was taught or educated as an actor was there's a sense of play, and you can't possibly recreate that moment. That just happened a minute ago. Why try? So I'm puzzled by people that wish to recreate that.
that just happened a minute ago. I want something brand new. This is the one that counts because this is the one we're in. This is where we are. i mean i want you to show up is what i want you to that's the consistency i want i want you to really be you know in your own skin and me and my skin and so we're both like doing doing our best and You're always trying to, you know, my brother Brian described it well as like,
You know, actors don't really compete. They just say, you know, that has an ugly feel to it, competing. But how about if I go here? can you match that and go here and can you go here and you keep elevating the scene and you keep adding more dynamics to it you know more color more
energy, you know, just different kinds of energy. You just keep trying to play a game, like, and you get to a level where it's really great, you know, and then you're seeing like a great exchange between a couple of actors. When did you realize you were good at improvising and being in the moment? Well, I'm not the best improviser. I mean, I can do things, but there are people that the real games of improvisation, that's...
I never really went as deeply into that as some people. You know, and there were people, even back in Second City, that were far better than I was. I was never a great improviser, but I could do something. I could do something.
I don't know what your question is anymore. I got lost in the tunnel. Sorry. When did you realize you were good at doing something? Oh, good. Yeah, I had a moment. I started talking about Second City because I did have a moment at Second City. I had a moment on the stage where I... said a line i spoke a line or i played part of a scene and at that moment i said that was good that was as good as people do
At that moment, I went, I could do this for a living. I knew I was good enough to do it for a living. Do you remember what the moment was? Nope. But something clicked. But I remember the moment. That's the key. That's when I went, okay, I can do this. I can relax. Not relax. Just relax, but I can also, like, go for it now. I can really dedicate myself to it. And, you know, my understanding was on Friday or something, you were in Japan.
for a baseball game or something? Well, I wasn't playing, but yeah, I was there. You weren't playing. You know, and now we're here in New York, and then tomorrow you're going to Austin to play with your...
And yesterday I was in Raleigh. Yesterday you were in Raleigh? At a NCAA basketball game. Which game were you at? It was UConn and Florida. Oh, hell of a game. Hell of a game. Hell of a game, Florida. It may have been the national championship game. Yeah. And this is all related to the idea of sort of being... present and in the moment. So learning that you, Bill Murray, were just sort of gallivanting around, it fits in with this idea of you as a guy who's...
following his bliss, wherever that leads. What are the ways in which being present and open in life are different or similar to being present and open? Is it all the same game? I think it's absolutely the same game. And for me, I shouldn't say the luxury, but the bliss of it is that. My job is a strong reminder of that being present thing. I can, you know. bamboozle my way through a day or miss a day or blow a day or waste a day. But when I go to work,
I know that there's going to be a document that says this is where this character was. Was he here or was he not there? And it's going to be like a deposition. You have to swear to tell the truth. This is real. This is going to be proof. It's going to be proof of how much I showed up. So it's kind of lucky that I have that job because I don't know how often I'd be doing it, you know?
gallivanting thing, you know, and I'm very much aware of the Carly Simon song, You're So Vain, whereas she says, you've charted a Learjet to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun. Someone that she's describing is like a pompous ass, you know? And I think, okay. How do you say, well, I'm going to go to Tokyo and then to Raleigh and then to New York and then to Texas and not be just like a tumbleweed that's just like trying to like.
have all these different experiences, you know, and just... And it has no ground. So how do you do it? Well, some of the things I actually have to do well. Some of the things I have to do well. I can tell myself, okay, as long as I know that when I go here... I will be forced to make an effort to show up, to reenter my body as much as possible, to be what people don't know is called present.
I could feel like a total twit doing all those things, but if I work hard, I don't feel that way. Did you always have the... desire or maybe it's a need to have that sense of presence? Or is that something you consciously... No, I didn't always have it. No, I didn't always have it. So where does it come from? Not consciously. I mean, I may have wanted to sort of... to express yourself as yourself and be sort of unique or your own thing.
But I never thought of being sort of that way until I had a little bit more understanding about what that way might be, some sort of way of living where... It's not all exterior, there's interior. I know a couple of people who lost parents fairly early and you lost your dad at 17. Right. And I think for them, it set them on a direction, you know, where they realize there's certain things they want from life. Do you think your... Dad's passing put you on a particular path?
Yeah, I do. I think I had two events in my life. That was one. And the other one, which I wasn't completely aware of when I was young, was when I was about... four or so. My younger sister contracted polio. And I wasn't kind of aware of what was happening, but all of a sudden... You really become like, not exactly an afterthought, but you're not the primary worry anymore. And at that point, I was already the fifth child. So somehow, some part of me realized.
Something's got to, I'm kind of, I got to really get going here. So I learned to read when I was four. I remember fighting over the comics with my brothers going, you can't even read. And then I proceeded to read all the comics to me. It's like. Oh. So did he give you the comics? Then I got the comics. Yeah. And then so then I became, I had to sort of like start operating, you know. I had a great birthday when I was five.
I got like a Davy Crockett bicycle with a rifle sheath and a rifle that came with it. loaded on the frame of the bike. It had saddlebags. I got a coonskin cap. I got a Cubs jacket and a Cubs hat, a baseball, and a bat. And I never had another birthday until I was 13. That was the end of that. So that was the moment where I had to do that. Then when I was 17, when my father died, that was another thing where... You know, that was like there went the sort of family income.
And so whatever life we were with nine kids by that point, you know, was going to be even more crimped, you know, because there just wasn't going to be. you know kind of really money for college and things like that and even though i was smart enough i never studied ever you know couldn't make myself so i had to sort of figure out how to get by in life, you know, so.
urban legend stories that I'm sure you're familiar with of, you know, you showing up and playing kickball with people on Roosevelt Island or, you know, commandeering a golf cart in Scandinavia somewhere. There's the one where... People said you would come up behind them on the street, put your hands over their eyes, and then when they turn around, you tell them no one will ever believe you. And I realized in preparing for this interview that those stories don't seem to pop up anymore.
And I wondered if you, did you stop doing that sort of stuff? Did you change your behavior? Did the world change and it felt less fun to do? Did it start to become the expected thing? That's a really good question because that sort of legend thing is now preceding me. It's now all around. It's all around, and I don't know if any of these things are legendary, you know, truly legendary, but I'm probably a little bit tentative about the same nature of engagement, kind of a little bit.
I'm afraid to go outdoors. I was out in Tokyo the other night, and I thought to myself, you know, if this were America, I'd be really conscious about some idiot making this a YouTube thing. But I just thought... This is really fun. I'm having fun. So it was good for me to go.
Back to Tokyo. I hadn't been back there since I'd made the movie in Tokyo. Loss of translation. One of the reasons I went back from the baseball game was an excuse to get back. And I reconnected with some friends that I'd made back there. I was very happy to do that. What sort of memories kicked up for you in Tokyo? What kind of memories? From the old days? Yeah, you obviously went back there to feel something. Well, I went back there and crashed into these couple of guys that I knew back then.
that were sort of the kings, the wizards of Tokyo back then and still are. They still are, and still having an amazing amount of fun. And the second night, I just went to the one fellow's place who's kind of a... like a known wizard. What do you mean wizard? Well, I think a wizard is someone that has figured out how to transform. like a moment into something bigger and larger. So just to spend four hours in this home and see all the things he had and the music that he was playing.
All of it was like, what is that? What the hell is that? And then he said, oh, here's something that I sent you that was returned to me. extraordinary book which came what was the book um uh it's a book of photographs and um and and He's a famous Japanese photographer who's now 80-some-odd years old and still takes thousands of photographs. And the book, it's...
It's more than an encyclopedia. It's just this incredible document. And the fact that it got returned to him, it may have come back to him twice. It includes like a big piece of tape on it that says, government sucks. What? So I had to carry this thing with me. He was going to ship it to me again. I said, no, no, I'll carry it. Well, anyway, I realized I'm going through customs.
with this big sign on the box that says, government sucks. And I thought, well, there's a profile. You know, I might get questioned here. Wait, I want to ask you a couple more questions about the friend, but... Before I do, I want to tell you a quick story. Your co-star in The Friend, she's really the star of the film, Naomi Watts.
Ten years ago, I was supposed to do an interview with her, and I got off the train because I was going in to do the interview, and my phone buzzed, and it was my wife, and she had gone into labor with our first child. Of course, I just got back on the subway, went back home, furiously getting our go bag ready. And then my phone rings. It's a number I don't recognize.
And I think, oh, maybe it's a doctor or something. I pick it up. And I say, like, agitatedly, hello? Hello? And I hear, hi, this is Naomi. I don't know a Naomi. Who? Who are you? And she said, I'm Naomi. I think we're supposed to do an interview now. And I said, oh, God, I'm so sorry. And then she was so nice. I was like, no, no, go. Just hang up immediately and go. And then we named our daughter Naomi. Oh. The last part's not true, but everything up to that is true.
Thank God. That's funny. Well, that sounds like the person I know, yeah. Yeah, she was very sweet about it. I always appreciate that. So did you ever get it done? Have a child? Well, you did that, obviously. Oh, no. A colleague of mine pinch hit for me and did the interview. But so The Friend is, you know, it's a beautiful novel. It's about a woman played by Naomi Watts, who's sort of... a pivotal figure in her life. Walter played by you.
dies from suicide. This all happens in the first couple minutes of the movie, so I'm not giving anything away. And then Naomi Watts' character has to take care of Walter's dog, which is a giant Great Dane. So what was interesting to you about this project and the role of Walter in particular? Well, Naomi called me up and said, you know, these folks would love to have you be in this. thing you know and i said okay you know give me a hard copy of the script and so i got a copy of the book
So I read it, and the fact that Naomi was attached got me to look at it in the first place very quickly and so forth. We made a movie called St. Vincent. And had a good experience. And we liked each other professionally, and then we became friends.
I don't know what your question was. Why did you do the movie? Why did I do the movie? So I did the movie because I thought it was good, and I kind of liked the idea of... being you know you're it's being asked to help sort of someone asks you to do something you're kind of a little bit more well you know someone i like and and
As an actor, you know, you're sort of, I love it because you're kind of reminded of what the rule was, you know, that this great director at Second City, Del Close, that, you know, you're worried about. you know, how you're coming off in a movie or a scene or something like that. You just think about making the other person look good. And whenever I forget in a movie, and sometimes I'll be working with some intimidating thug actor or actress, and I go like, oh, God.
I got to deal with this somehow. And then I just go, okay, I'm just going to make this one look good. Everything changes when you do that. After the break, Bill and I talk about a darker chapter in his career. I don't go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened on being mortal. Can you say what happened? Yeah, I can say what happened. I think I'm allowed to. We've reset our strategy to grow value for shareholders. Growing upstream, focusing downstream, playing to our strengths.
This is a Reset BP. Find out more at BP.com forward slash reset. Transition activities such as EV charging, bioenergy and renewables are a much smaller... Hi, I'm Megan Loram, the director of photography at the New York Times.
A photograph can do a lot of different things. It can connect us. It can bring us to places we've never been before. It can capture a story in a universal visual language. But one thing that all these photographs have in common is that, you know, they don't just come out of We spend a lot of time anticipating news stories, working with the best photographers across the globe. These are photographers who have
spent years mastering their technical craft, developing their skills as visual chroniclers of our world. You know, getting certified as a scuba diver and learning how to shoot underwater to document climate change or tremendous cardiovascular training.
to ski on the slopes next to Olympic athletes. This is an effort that takes tons of time and consideration and resources. All of this is possible only because of New York Times subscribers. If you're not a subscriber yet, you can become one at nytimes.com. There's an anecdote about Samuel Beckett in both the film, The Friend, and the book. It's sort of a famous anecdote about Beckett where he's out walking with a friend and it's a beautiful day and the friend...
says to Samuel Beckett, like, something along the lines of, you know, isn't a day like this enough to make you glad to be alive? And Samuel Beckett says, I wouldn't go as far as that. And I wondered about how a line like that jibes. It seems to me to capture something about you, both the sort of awareness of... the beautiful aspects of life, and then there's also a melancholy to it. Because I really think a lot of your best dramatic work...
touches on some real melancholy, like Lost in Translation, Rushmore, of course, St. Vincent. Do you relate to a line like that? Well, uh... You know, I came from the Second City, you know, and we didn't consider ourselves comedians, although our shows were funny. We considered ourselves actors. So that's... We always took it seriously that that's what it is. And if you're a good...
comedian, you're a good actor because it's the same process. You have to be able to read a straight line to get a joke, to get a laugh. You can't read a straight line. You know, you're not going to go very far, you know, if you're just like pounding a, you know. I don't want to compare it to Gallagher. If you're just pounding smashing watermelons, that's not for everyone. But for one thing, there's just as many funny movies written as there are ones.
You know, comedy used to be king. Comedy used to be king. Comedies came out in the summer, and if a movie was funny, it would run the whole summer. You know, that was how it was. Have you seen such and such? It's funny. And then you'd go and it would run the whole summer. Then it became like a Marvel summer. It became like, have you seen Mr. Fantastico or whatever the hell? No, whatever, yes. So, you know, the movie industry got away from making this funny movie.
And it's just sort of inevitable if you stay alive and you keep working that you have to do something different. But making these, you know, I don't want to sound obvious, but... You know, these movies that have melancholy in them, there's definitely funny things in them too, you know? And you have to be able to... Like there's a scene in Lost in Translation where there's this melancholy guy. He's in this bar on the top of the tallest.
hotel in Tokyo and he's drinking to get drunk and there's he meets this young girl in there and he's drinking to get drunk and he's dressed in tuxedo and he's just come from doing this horrendous commercial shoot. But, you know, he plays this whole scene and then he turns his back and you realize his jacket is all pinned together in the back so it fits perfectly in the front for the TV camera. But he's so oblivious and so, so...
So fleeing from the horrible reality of his life, he doesn't even bother to take the damn pins out of the back. He's forgotten they're even there. So that's kind of... The unknowing of what's funny about it. Your own life is amusing when you do see it. You know, when you do see what a fool you make of yourself or how blind you are, that stuff's funny. And I appreciate it in my own life.
It's kind of great to show it, and it's great to show the obliviousness of it on the screen. Your part in The Friend, in a way... Reminds me of some other relatively recent parts from your career in that he's sort of a charismatic, charming guy who's also... been sort of a selfish ding-dong. Sort of what? Selfish ding-dong is the way I put it. And I just recently saw something where you had done a Sundance.
interview with Elvis Mitchell, who he was a film critic for The Times for a long time. And he brought up the film On the Rocks. And I thought, oh, the On the Rocks character and Walter, there's some... similarities between them. And in your interview with Elvis Mitchell, you know, you referred to taking on roles like the On the Rocks role as a kind of penance. And I thought...
Well, penance could mean making amends. It could mean punishment. What would it mean to say taking on a role is like a form of penance? And did that apply to Walter also? I think those definitions are accurate. The one I would kind of lean toward myself is that you have to suffer.
to play it like it's not to play a complete jerk or what what did you call ding dong selfish ding dong that's why i didn't hear that i never heard those words together it's pretty sweet i liked it And this is going to go sideways for a second. One of my, in this movie, the friend, I'm someone that's had three wives, and one of my wives is such a horrible creature that I finally ran into her not at work.
just a few weeks ago, and I said, I'm sorry, I got to say, I'm so glad you're like a human being. I thought you couldn't possibly be that good as a horrible creature without being a horrible creature. So that really was great acting. But for me, the penance is like having to live and be the part of that person that you really have to make people uncomfortable.
You really have to make people uncomfortable. And even though it's only acting, and even though it's only for a minute, it's real. You really make people feel it. And to do that, you can't... You can't be like a method idiot and be like mean all the time. You know, I work with those fools.
But you have to be really consistently a selfish ding-dong in the scene, and you have to be unrelenting. And when you really bear down on someone, if you're doing it well enough, you really hurt someone. It really hurt. They really feel the hurt because you're doing it. to enable them to express the hurt for the camera. So it's rough. It's rough stuff.
You know, I got to take a deep breath and exhale afterwards and, you know, like, get over here, you know. That was just, you know, that wasn't us. That was that, you know. If you don't do it that hard, you're kind of cheating. Is it cathartic for you? Do you somehow grow from that experience? Yeah, you can feel that too. When you've performed as a horrible creep, you know.
that, hey, I have been that horrible creep. I have been that horrible creep and not seen it and not been aware of it. And you're really seeing it if you're doing it. In the scene, you're doing it well, you're seeing it. You know, something that also stood out for me with the film, and it's connected maybe to what we were just talking about, there is a parallel between Walter...
And you in that Walter in the film has been accused of some inappropriate misconduct. And a couple of years ago on being mortal, there was some. It was described as inappropriate misconduct. I mean, surely those parallels... occurred to you? Did you think about them during the film, or were you trying to work through something? I mean, I don't go...
too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened on being mortal. Yeah. Can you say what happened? Yeah, I can say what happened. I think I'm allowed to. There was some sort of, you know, I tried to make peace. I thought I was trying to make peace. I ended up being like... to my mind, barbecued. Someone that I worked with, you know, that I had lunch with, you know, on various days of the week and so forth. We were all, it was COVID, we were all wearing masks.
And we were all just stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. And I don't know what prompted me to do it. It's something that I had done to someone else before. And I thought it was funny. And every time it happened, it was funny. I was wearing a mask and I gave her a kiss. You know, it was like, it wasn't like I touched her. It was just, I gave her a kiss through a mask, through another mask to another person. And it wasn't, she wasn't a stranger.
And you said you think about this often. Well, it still bothers me because that movie was stopped by the... whatever they call the human rights or H&R of the Disney Corporation, which is probably a little bit more strident than some other countries. And I, you know, it turned out there was like pre-existing conditions and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, what? Why was anyone supposed to know anything like that? It was like.
And there was to be no conversation. There was no conversation. There was nothing. There was no peacemaking, nothing. Nothing. And just this, it went to this lunatic arbitration, which I recommend anyone out there. Anyone ever suggest you go to arbitration? Don't do it. Never, ever do it. Because you think it's like justice, and it isn't. Do you feel like you learned something from that experience? You know...
I think so. I mean, you know, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but I just thought... It was a disappointment. It was a great disappointment because I thought I knew someone and I did not. And I thought it was, I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. And to me, it's still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on. It's still stupid. It's all it was. And we're talking about a movie being mortal, which is a wonderful book.
By Atul Gawande about death and dying. And the subject matter is gruesome. It's about a man whose father is dying before his very eyes. At that time, we were shooting at the Hollywood Retirement Home. And, you know, you're there with people of your own career that are no longer able to, or, you know, they're not working anymore, but many of them are invalid, you know, and you're there with people.
You're surrounded by them and you say, and somehow you're still healthy enough to work and they're extras. You know, they're just extras or just witnesses. And it was, I felt like a, you know, I had an even more of an obligation than usual, like, okay, to make this like. It's fun, you know. I spent a lot of the day, and when you're dealing with it, this painful material all day long, part of what I've felt my job has always been is to keep the mood light.
is to like elevate, to just leaven this a little bit, you know? Like this is, the job is not easy. The job is not easy. And when you're doing a story that's really about pain and misery, Everyone can get pained and miserable, and you don't want that. You want to just say, hey, we are still in this. We're still who we are. We're not dying. Like this man is dying in the movie. We're living a life and we have a great opportunity here to live it. Let's go. I mean, like.
The day before this, you know, we had mariachis at lunch, you know, singing and La Bamba. I got up and sang La Bamba with the band. It was just, we're trying to make this, you know. a little bit more bearable. You know, it's life. can, is, and should be hard. It should be challenging. It's hard enough without getting miserable. There's sort of like a central... mystery for me about
That sounds too highfalutin to say. There's something I don't understand about you. I'm not going to pretend there's a central mystery. You're not alone then. I don't understand something about me. Most of it. You know, you describe, you know, wanting to bring lightness to set, but there are, you know, they're easy to find a handful of rough stories about you on set, you know, winging a glass ashtray at Richard Dreyfuss's head.
In fact, not even true. So you can tell that story as much as you like, but it's never going to be true. I did fire a glass, but I threw it at the ceiling. We were in a townhouse on the set of What About Bob, and I did not fire it at anyone. I threw it up in a far corner of the townhouse, kind of assuming it might break upon contact with the ceiling and the walls, but I didn't throw it at anyone. If I'd thrown it at Dreyfus...
In Geena Davis's memoir, she sort of... Outrageous. Dressed her down. But I don't need to go through the list. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're also talking about... And, you know, when someone has like an episode, like mine on this being mortal thing, the world goes searching for more proof that this person is a monster, an absolute monster. Well, I've had interactions with... Hundreds of thousands of people over 40, 50 years. Hundreds of thousands of people. Now you can come up with.
half a dozen you probably if you really worked you probably come up with a couple dozen but you're talking about you're saying they're not represented life yeah you know this is my life i i am engaged all the time I'm not complaining about it because I hate people that complain about it, but I don't walk down the street the way that you can walk down the street. I walk down the street and people go, hey, you.
And I miss walking down the street like you walk down the street. I miss it. But it's never coming back, so I deal. And most people, I have a... Most people I have just an okay experience with. Some people you have a spectacular experience with. But my percentages are no different than yours. If you meet 100 people, I meet 1,000. 75 of them are kind of forgettable, right? Maybe 80. And then there's a handful that are wonderful.
And then there's a handful that are unpleasant and miserable. You know, you live in New York. You're going to have some oddballs, right? I have the same numbers. I just have lots more. What you just described, the inability to walk down the street anonymously like I can walk down the street. How did you figure out how to manage that in a way that didn't make your life feel impossible?
It's a continuous process. It's not like, oh, I figured that one out because I'm never the same. I'm not the same person now that I was. 20 minutes ago you know I'm not and and you can have a different point of view about it you know you can get so you just hide from people I've walked down the street with A hat down over my head, glasses on my eyes. I loved COVID. I loved COVID. Because I could just walk down the street with a mask on my face. It was fantastic.
But I've been all kinds of ways about it, and it's a continuing development. I used to spend so much energy. People would say like, can I take your picture? And I would kind of ask that would say, it's may I take your picture? You know, do you know how many times I said that to no avail? Absolutely no avail. But I wasted a whole lot of time that way, you know.
and doing stuff to make it acceptable on my... stupid terms you know trying to like let me just try to like make life more like i like it you know what a screw head what if do people curse on your show yeah i'm doing a fine job of holding back i think But I keep wanting to say, not so good. I'm in. Now what I do for a living is I take cell phone photographs. That's what I do for a living. I'm not an actor. I am a donkey that is photographed with people who don't know how to operate their own.
cell phone, camera. That's what I do all day long. I mean, a lot. You do it a lot. I do it a lot. And it's just, that's part of, and I don't think any, I don't regret it. I don't resent it. It's like, this is what I do. It's so simple. And I've realized how much energy I was wasting with all that. Resisting it. Resisting it. It was just crazy. And when it finally hit me, I went, oh my God, what a jerk. How could you have been a jerk?
for that long. Yeah. Have you found a way to get fulfillment out of this new job that you've recognized that you have? I thought about that actual question while I was sort of answering. It's not so much fulfilling as people are— Oh, so you got teary-eyed. I didn't mean to— I'm good at it. I've gotten pretty good at it. Strike a nerve, yeah. And people, most people recognize when they see how skillful I am with this reverse.
Oh my God, how did you do that? How did you do that? Well, because I've done it thousands of times. That's how I got good at it. It's like a guy who fixes pipes. Got good at it. This thing is six hours long anyway. We're almost done. We're almost done. What you said about being a different person in one moment than you were 20 seconds prior. Are we getting anything done here? I'm having a good time. Are you having a good time?
This one over here is the cipher over here. This one here. So Annabelle? Yeah, nothing. Well, she's doing her job. Is she medicated or is she a... I'm watching the levels. Oh, you're watching the levels. It's all about the levels with this one. What was I saying? Oh, so you're a different person from, you can be a different person in the present than you were 20 seconds ago. Yeah. Do you... like that feeling? Or is it destabilizing to think 20 seconds from now, I could be a different person?
Well, I only like it if I see what a horrible, well, it's not fair. If you see what you're up to, you should like it. You know, whether it's you're being horrible or you're being wonderful. If you see it, that's great. Score, you know, score one. Because the awareness is what's important. Yeah, the awareness of, like, being what you are, you know, that has value. That's being awake. There's no value to being just rolling through.
You know, you don't, you know, they just put you in a grave at the end. You didn't do anything. finish with a little section from the novel, The Friend. I'm just curious. Somehow I knew he was going to read aloud. At some point during this thing, I knew he was going to read aloud from something. Do I give that vibe? The kind of guy who is into recitation? Well, I know you didn't have any of your own poetry, which is a big plus, but go ahead. Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it.
This is right near the end of an album. What we miss, what we lose, and what we mourn. Isn't it this that makes us who deep down we truly are? To say nothing of what we wanted in life, but never got to have. So my question for you is, what haven't you gotten that you wanted? And what did you get that you wanted? Well, I don't know which to say first. Say the sadder one first, and let's end on an up note. Well, the sadder one is I haven't gotten...
I don't want to really sound too damn special here. I haven't gotten where... I'm active all the time. Active meaning aware. Yeah. I haven't gotten so that I'm... I'm much more of a person, a being, than I am now. I haven't gotten there. But what I have gotten was the opportunity, the knowledge. They're like, hey, there's a way to do this. If only you had to. guts or the inner resources to do it. If you were just tougher on yourself, if you were just more demanding, not so lazy, not so...
unconscious, you know, all this. But you can rally, and the rallies are extraordinary. The rallies are great. The rallies are great. And they give you hope. And it's the hope for a rally that really keeps me going. I really hope for a rally all the time. You feel one coming on? This is a rally. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me. Thank you. This has been a nice time here. That's Bill Murray. The Friend is in theaters nationwide starting April 4th.
This conversation was produced by Annabelle Bacon. It was edited by Alison Benedict. Mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Alicia Baetup, and Marian Lozano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Wyatt Orme, and Seth Kelly. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, David Carthus, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Maciello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to the
And you can email us anytime at theinterviewatnytimes.com. Next week, Lulu talks with comedian Rami Youssef. For me, there's an obligation to be emotional. what something feels like right on the head. Like that's my nail that I'm trying to hit. The nail I don't want to be asked to hit is to... spread facts and information. I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview.
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