Nobody has been in more Wes Anderson movies than Bill Murray, having only been left out of three of his films. While Covid knocked him out of Asteroid City and he might have felt shoehorned into Henry Sugar, the reason he wasn’t in Anderson’s debut, Bottle Rocket, came down to a bias against a first-time director.
But that wasn’t because of Bill Murray, who, while notoriously hard to contact, was actively being sought out by Wes Anderson. But according to Murray, “My agents never gave me the script because he was a nobody.” And now we can see why he prefers to cut out all middle men.
The drive to get Bill Murray to appear as Abe Henry — the role that eventually went to James Caan (who had trouble adapting to Anderson’s style) — wouldn’t just be coming from Wes Anderson but pretty much everybody else who believed in the director (and the short film which inspired Bottle Rocket). And as Murray was being pursued for Anderson’s sophomore film, Rushmore, people were working overtime to make sure he had Anderson on the radar, amassing a practical video store of copies of his debut. “I like to say that I have the largest collection of video cassettes of Bottle Rocket, the first movie…I’ve still never seen Bottle Rocket. But I have a lot of [VHS] of it…They just kept sending them to me, sending them to me, sending them…”
Despite some controversy surrounding Bill Murray over allegations of inappropriate behavior on the set of Aziz Ansari’s Being Mortal, Wes Anderson has said that he will continue to work with the actor. He has even cast him in his upcoming film, The Phoenician Scheme. And by this point, we have to assume Anderson is one of the lucky ones with Murray’s number. Lousy agents!
What is your favorite collaboration between Bill Murray and Wes Anderson? What makes it work better than the others? Give us your pick below!