The Best Things We Learned From Bill Murray’s Reddit AMA

It’s good to be Bill Murray.

Bill Murray gave an AMA on Reddit Wednesday, and, frankly, it was a bit hard to follow. But Bill Murray doesn’t care what any of us think, and he’s just here to have fun. Deal with it.


The AMA was part of his promotion for Rock The Kasbah, which opens on Friday. But he didn’t spend much time talking about that movie. He did, however, give us some insight into the best and worst things about being Bill Murray:

…they’re one in the same: You wish you could walk down the street and look at things and watch things uninterrupted. The shock of being recognized brings you out of this place where you’re just trying to take it in. Its an obligation and you’re reminded you have to show up. It’s a coin with two sides. As much as I don’t like the one side, the other side is what might save me.

He also reminisced about his wild time on the set of Caddyshack, and gave an homage to Rodney Dangerfield, who apparently had a supernatural ability to party:

There are not many people alive who could party with Rodney. He would have left you all for dead. He really went hard, he was fun. He was funny. The thing that’s notable about the movie, there’s several great comedians in the movie. Crazy different styles. Ted Knight is different from Chevy, who is different from Rodney who is different than my brother. Henry Wilcoxon, he was like the original Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. He came here, a savage hunk and then in our movie, he’s playing a bishop! In my free time on the movie, I spent it with him. That’s who I wanted to talk to, that’s who had an irony and experience beyond us. He was super cool.

The AMA was peppered with complaints from Redditors about what they felt was sub-par transcribing of Murray’s response. But maybe this is just how he talks? Exhibit A, in which Murray rambles about working with Wes Anderson:

I dont know what I bring to the movies, I bring to it, what he writes. What I got with him, when he had money to spend like in Rushmore? I think I gave him confidence and I fought the people who were ugly on set. I said don’t worry about this thing, I’ll make sure this shot happens. I’m like a uncle, I don;t know what I’m like …. I give nothing to the movie but I’m good company. We’ve had great success together, the people who work for him are slavishly devoted to getting it done and making sure his vision gets done in that way, there’s sort of some guys who get a special pass and sometimes suggestions are great. He doesn’t like fly he prefers ground travel. I’m telling you guys this and he came through and we worked in Santa Fe, we gotta get down to this train, so we met these Mariachi band, 8 violins and a couple big guitars, they were striking! I said OH COME ON, they had a layover, lets get something to eat, we got great Mexican food, we ate outdoors. Wes said “I felt something funny, when you opened the door” and the whole train station just got filled with their music. They played to them as the train pulled away. We had someone else on the film get married, and we got this same bland all women band to blast them with music.

Okay then! Asked to name his favorite movie project, Murray wouldn’t narrow it down to just one; instead talking about some of the wild times he had on set. Including crashing an MC Hammer concert. And some more confusion about retiring but also not retiring after filming Broken Flowers.

You’re not supposed to have favorite children. The early ones were fun when people weren’t as fussy. Maybe, What About Bob, was reallly fun. We were on a lake in Smith Mountain, VA. We took over a resort, Labor Day night was a brawl and in the morning everyone was gone. We waterskiied on a full moon…its a moonshine county there. The party would start at 5:45pm and full tilt at 6:08. We crashed a MC Hammer concert, we’re an hour from Roanoke. We had to find our way back to see the concert. I called CAA and said I want to see this show, I said I’m bringing people. We hired a bus, 55 people completely party all the way to the place get there and bouncers are like “Hey Bill! Aw man how many withchu” and they put us on the side of the stage. Anyway, that movie was fun. I think Broken Flowers, that was a perfectly directed movie, and I really did retire at that moment. Retire sounds horrible, I thought what can I do any better, I think Im doing pretty well, it so happened I started having a second life and working with Wes, Sofia and they kept coming. I thought I made my mark, made my bones. I thought there was something else I could do but nothing really appeared.

Murray did not respond to multiple questions about what he whispered in Scarlett Johansson’s ear at the end of Lost in Translation. Nor did he respond to an invitation to go to someone’s 30th birthday party at the Dave & Buster’s in Kansas City.

Photos by Vera Anderson / WireImage