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Topics: Bill Murray, Celebrity, Film and TV, Entertainment
Ella Scott
Topics: Bill Murray, Celebrity, Film and TV, Entertainment
Bill Murray has admitted he felt ‘barbecued’ amid misconduct complaints that arose while working on Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut, Being Mortal.
In April 2022, 74-year-old Murray was accused of exhibiting inappropriate behavior by a younger female crew member, causing Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures to halt and later suspend work on the comedy-drama flick.
The film, which began production a month before the complaint was submitted, had cast Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer to star alongside Murray.
After Searchlight pulled the project, Ansari failed to find another financier and distributor, thus putting Being Mortal on hold. It has yet to be finished.
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Murray was named in the complaint and reportedly later reached a settlement with his accuser, thought to be just over $100,000, as per PEOPLE.
A report published at the time claimed the Ghostbusters icon had ‘straddled’ the anonymous woman on a prop bed and kissed her on the mouth while wearing masks as part of the studio’s COVID-19 safety protocol.
Speaking recently to The New York Times about his new movie, The Friend, Murray admitted he often thinks about the misconduct accusations.
“I don’t go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened,” he told the publication.
“It was Covid, we were all wearing masks and we were all stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. I dunno 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, and she was wearing a mask. It wasn’t like I touched her, but it was just, I gave her a kiss through a mask. And she wasn’t a stranger."
The Royal Tenenbaums favorite claims there was no ‘peacemaking’ after the incident while describing the entire situation as a ‘great disappointment’.
"I thought I knew someone, and I did not. I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. 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."
When asked if he’d learned from the Being Mortal experience, Murray responded: "I think so."
Elsewhere in the interview, the father-of-six discussed another claim made against him, this time by Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis.
The 69-year-old previously claimed the actor yelled at her in front of about ‘300 people’ on the set of Quick Change.
"There were easily more than 300 people there — and Murray was still screaming at me, for all to see and hear," she wrote in Dying of Politeness: A Memoir.
In response, Murray claimed the Being Mortal ‘episode’ caused the world to ‘go searching for more proof’ that he was a monster.
"Well, I’ve had interactions with hundreds of thousands of people over 40, 50 years. Now, you can come up with half a dozen [with bad experiences]. If you really worked, you’d probably come up with a couple dozen," he said.