Bill Murray has been in some of the biggest and best movies of the past 40 years — Stripes, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Kingpin, Rushmore, Lost in Translation — plus dozens of other movies you’ve seen over the years.
But his most memorable character is probably the one who’s never been in a movie – himself. The stories about the actor are more mythical than his film parts.
There are hundreds of stories of common people about the antics of the dead.
He would follow ideal strangers and lay his hands on their eyes from behind and say “Guess who.”
When people turned back he would say, “No one will ever believe you.”
A man was smoking a cigarette outside a bar when Murray passed by, grabbed it by his mouth, pulled it, gave it back and said, “No one will ever believe you.”
The late Harold Ramis, who starred with Murray in Ghostbusters and Stripes and directed him in Groundhog Day, once told the story of a fan walking up to him on the streets of New York City.
The fan told Murray how much he loved her, to which Bill replied, “You bastard, I’m going to bite your nose!”
Then he started slamming this gentleman on the ground and jokingly bit his nose.
“No one will ever believe you,” was the only explanation needed.1
These actions were overtaken by random encounters on the street with strangers.
There was a realization after watching a rough cut of Ghostbusters Murray: “I knew then that I was going to be rich and famous. Not only did I go back to work with a lot of attitude, I was late. I didn’t care – I knew we could be late every day for the rest of our lives. ,
There was a comic genius here who now became aware of his powers and took advantage of it.
Murray always worked but he was not as punctual as Domino’s and it was extremely difficult to work with him on some projects.
Gavin Edwards has collected all these stories in his book Bill Murray’s Tao, This is a microcosm of his actions on set, regarding his Oscar-winning turn in Lost in Translation:
For example, Sofia Coppola spent eight months chasing Bill for Lost in Translation, eventually reaching her through her friend Mitch Glazer: Bill agreed to the job. “They had been shooting in Tokyo for a week or two,” Glazer recalled. “Sophia called me, I thought, to let me know how good things are. But she said, ‘Um, did you hear from Bill?’ And I said, ‘Isn’t he there?’ He said, ‘Okay, no. He has to show up tomorrow and we didn’t listen, and we shot everything without him.’ , However, records show that Bill came, gave a performance of his life, and even helped move the instrument from place to place.
This duality between being unbelievable as well as being a genius was an ongoing theme on the sets of the film.
There’s a scene in The Stripes where Murray leads his rag-tag platoon in a choreographed training routine:
Director Ivan Reitman summarized the ups and downs of working on a film set with Murray, describing how it came together:
“I knew we needed some great second-act curtains.” Reitman started a routine with a military drill specialist and then recruits spent weeks practicing it. However, Bill refused to go to any rehearsals. Reitman pleaded with him, “Bill, you have to learn this. You’re going to be in front of it — you can’t look bad.”
“No no no, I’ll get it,” Bill assured her. He went to one or two rehearsals, maybe five percent of the time the other cast members did. On the day of shooting, he filmed in front of five hundred people who had never seen the routine before. “As always, Bill’s routine was perfect,” Reitman sighed. “I don’t know where the hell this came from.”
There are endless stories like this where the movie star wasn’t trustworthy, yet delivered when it mattered.
Murray was so difficult to work with that he and Ramis didn’t talk for more than 20 years after collaborating on Groundhog Day. “It’s like working with Vincent van Gogh on a bad day,” Ramis recalled.
Would it have been possible to do such amazing performances if he had not been so oppressed talent?
The hot-and-cold nature of Murray’s character is consistent in many of the most successful people.
Kanye West comes to mind as a musical genius with increasingly erratic demeanor. Working for Steve Jobs was extremely difficult. Thomas Edison was such a jerk that he went back to his laboratory after his wedding ceremony, working into the wee hours of the night, unaware that his bride was awaiting his return.
Then there’s today’s Edison, Elon Musk.
Musk alone may have forced the entire auto industry to accelerate its deadline to make electric vehicles ubiquitous.
With SpaceX, he has cemented our position as a leader in rocket technology and space transportation.
Man is trying to make energy more sustainable and making interplanetary travel a possibility.
His achievements as an innovator and businessman are astonishing.
And then you have other stuff. The fabric of social media. Controversial statement. Pumping of shitcoins. strange behaviour.
Now you have Twitter’s takeover attempt.
Matt Levine summed up how ridiculous all of this is as he can:
Still I think the Twitter bankers at Goldman Sachs would sit down with Musk’s bankers at Morgan Stanley and Goldman would say “so uh where is the financing coming from” and Morgan Stanley would say “oh the financing is in this can” and give Goldman a Hand over the can and Goldman will open the can and a swarm of fake snakes will pop out. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs you’ve got us in again and everyone will have a good laugh. Because, again, among public-company CEOs, Elon Musk has pretended in the past that he was going to take a public company private with pretense financing! I’m not saying he’s joking now; I’m just saying he’s the only person who has made this particular joke in the past.
Does Elon Musk really want to buy Twitter because he cares about free speech? sure why not.
But isn’t it also possible that the richest man in the world is bored, enjoying the attention he gets on social media and looking for some entertainment?
Why would he want to buy Twitter when he’s already running two important companies?
Cognitive dissonance is what happens to the brain when a person puts together two different beliefs in their brain that are incompatible with each other.
Holding this position is as comfortable as sleeping on a bed of water (seriously why did people ever think it was a good idea?) When your mind senses this restlessness, try to eliminate it by choosing a side. does.
With Elon Musk both sides look something like this:
(1) Those who worship the land on which he walks and love unconditionally.
(2) Those who despise him and get irritated whenever his name comes up.
It’s hard to believe that Elon Musk is both a genius and a social media troll but it appears that this is just who he is.
I’m not sure he would have become the richest person if it were any other way.
Elon Musk is a genius who doesn’t follow social norms. And maybe he doesn’t follow societal norms because he is a genius.
As Murray becomes self-conscious after his Ghostbusters success, I think Musk realizes just how much power he has now that Tesla and SpaceX have reached escape speeds.
Elon Musk is a complex genius who has the ability to inspire and drive people crazy.
When it comes to the most successful people it may be a feature, not a bug.
Further studies:
The Psychology of Betting Big and Losing Everything
1It’s worth noting that most of these stories predate the invention of the iPhone.
