UPDATE: Bill Murray has finally spoken out regarding the on-set incident that led to Aziz Ansari’s Being Mortal being shut down. While speaking to CNBC, Murray said the whole thing came out to a “difference of opinion” between him and a woman he was working with on-set. “I did something I thought was funny and it wasn’t taken that way.” Murray seemed hopeful him and the unnamed woman could put this behind them, saying “As of now we are talking and we are trying to make peace with each other.” He adds: “we are both professionals, we like each others’ work, we like each other I think and if we can’t really get along and trust each other there’s no point in going further working together or making the movie as well. It’s been quite an education for me.”
No word yet when and if the film will resume production and whether or not Murray would return to the film, which is said to have been a significant way into production, meaning that recasting him would be an expensive option.
ORIGINAL POST: It was reported yesterday that production on Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut Being Mortal was being suspended. Deadline has now said that the reason for that suspension has to do with a complaint made against Bill Murray for inappropriate behavior.
The nature of Bill Murray’s alleged inappropriate behavior hasn’t been revealed, but an investigation into the complaint is underway. Searchlight Pictures has said that it doesn’t comment on investigations, but Aziz Ansari and his producing partner Youree Henley have been working with the studio to figure out the next steps.
Being Mortal is based on Atul Gawande’s non-fiction book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. In addition to directing the film, Aziz Ansari also wrote the script and will star alongside Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, and Bill Murray. There aren’t a lot of details about the film, but the book explores the concepts of death and aging and how the medical profession tends to mishandle both. Here’s the official description of the novel with more information:
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients’ anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them. And families go along with all of it.
Aziz Ansari will next be lending his voice to The Bob’s Burger Movie on May 27, 2022.