Bill Murray appeared defiant while addressing his alleged “inappropriate behavior,” saying he ended up being “barbecued” for something he still believes is “funny.”
In an interview published Saturday in The New York Times, the 74-year-old actor said he doesn’t go “too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened” on the set of the film Being Mortal, which halted production in 2022 after a younger female production assistant accused him of straddling her and kissing her on the mouth while both were wearing face masks.
“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,” the Groundhog Day actor said, adding, “And she wasn’t a stranger.”
“To me it’s still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on,” he doubled down.
He reportedly paid the woman about $100,000 in a settlement, after she filed an official complaint. Murray, who is infamous for his reportedly volatile behavior on set, took a dig at Disney and the human resources department for shelving the film.
“It still bothers me because that movie was stopped by the human rights or ‘H & R’ of the Disney corporation,” he quipped.
In the same interview, Murray denied hurling a glass ashtray at actor Richard Dreyfuss’s face while shooting What About Bob? “You can tell that story as much as you like, but it’s never going to be true. I did fire a glass, but I threw it at the ceiling,” he insisted.
The star grew emotional while reflecting on being recognized everywhere he goes, attributing his reputation for rough behavior to the sheer number of people he interacts with each day: “If you meet a hundred people, I meet a thousand people.”
One of those interactions went viral last week, when a video captured Murray lashing out at a pushy fan for walking into him at a New York City movie theater. “You attack me like that again, I’ll step on your foot,” he told the instantly apologetic fan.
The actor, known for iconic roles in Ghostbusters and Lost in Translation, is currently promoting his latest film, The Friend, co-starring Naomi Watts.
