After 48 years in the spotlight, Bill Murray says there’s just one role he regrets turning down.
The 74-year-old actor rose to fame as a cast member on SNL from 1997 to 1980 and has since starred in several major projects including Ghostbusters, Lost in Translation, Groundhog Day and The Grand Budapest hotel.
But despite his extensive resume, Murray told Howard Stern that he still holds onto the regret of passing on the opportunity to work with one of Hollywood’s biggest names.
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“I was watching the Clint Eastwood movies of the day, like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or whatever the hell the movies he was making then, and I thought, ‘his sidekick gets killed, and he avenges, but the sidekick gets like a great part, a great death scene’,” he began when asked by Stern if there was ever someone he wanted to act with “so bad”.
Fresh off the back of filming the 1981 war comedy film Stripes, Murray decided to call Eastwood “out of the blue” to tell him he was interested in working together.
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Eastwood was receptive of the idea, pitching another war comedy he had in mind for Murray.
“He had this great idea for an enormous navy thing,” Murray explained.
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“When he said, ‘would you ever want to do another service comedy’, [I was] like ‘jeez would I become like Abbott and Costello?’ I had to do like military movies?’
“And I said, ‘well, God, I guess maybe I shouldn’t’.”
So, Murray turned the role down out of fear of being typecast.
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“It’s one of the few regrets I have, is that I didn’t do it, because it was a big scale thing,” he said.
“He [Eastwood] had access to World War II boats and he could’ve made a flotilla and stuff, there was some cool stuff in it.
“And now when I see him I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, I wish I’d done that Clint, I’m really sorry.” He’s certainly well over it but.”
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