Many may remember Sofia Coppola’s breakthrough work Lost in Translation as being a somewhat gloomy glimpse of what loneliness in fame can look like. Bill Murray’s portrayal of a movie star having a midlife crisis in Japan’s capital was the perfect backdrop for a commentary on how alienating fame and different cultures can be, but he had a companion in Scarlett Johansson.
While the ending of the movie surely bought tears to our eyes as Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain was playing in the background, Johansson had some problems off-screen with her co-star. Lots of people may see Bill Murray as a sweet old man whose situation you would take pity upon, but he was quite the opposite on set.
Scarlett Johansson On Uncomfortable Set Presence Of Bill Murray
Lost in Translation premiered 19 years ago, and Bill Murray’s performance as Bob Harris remains as fresh as ever in our minds. The comedy-drama movie landed the 72-year-old actor a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award as well as an Oscar nomination.
But the performance that he put in the movie, which almost made us empathetic looking at the state of his character was not reflective of Murray’s tendency to be…let’s say weird on a movie set.
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Murray’s co-star in Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johansson, came out to share her experience working with the Ghostbusters star, and it just made me take back all the sympathy I had for Bob Harris.
Speaking with Howard Stern in a 2017 interview, the 37-year-old actress said that the movie was “a hard shoot for me”-
“It was hard, it was a hard shoot for me. I felt sort of out of the loop. I was 17 years old when I made that movie, you know.
She further explains-
“I think it was because, you know, he (Bill Murray) kind of has his — he’s a comedian, he’s quirky … and he had a lot of, like, ups and downs, and he had a lot of energy, and he was really, like, kind of always on.”
“And I was, you know, a 17-year-old, and I was sort of like — I was more introspective, I guess. … Yeah, it was hard for me. I think that’s what was kind of isolating about it — is that everybody was so deferential [to Murray].”
About Bill Murray’s Recent Accusations…
This may look like a surprising revelation to a lot of people, but that’s not the case- Murray’s always been like this.
For those who do not know, the Ghostbusters star has a reputation for being hard to work with, and his mood swings don’t help. His actions on set have been problematic for almost everyone involved, but his recent accusations tell us that he has taken a step further in being a nuisance on set.
Bill Murray has been accused of se*ually harassing a much younger female production assistant on the set of Being Mortal, the production for which has now been suspended.
Another accusation by his Quick Change co-star Geena Davis says that Murray screamed at her for being late to set as well as insisted she use a “Thumper” which can be used as a message device, which Davis refused.
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There’s also one more recent accusation described by the Groundhog Day actor’s co-star Seth Green. Green accused Murray of manhandling him, who was 9 at the time, and then dropping him into a trash can- all because Green refused to get off the armest of Murray’s seat at a Saturday Night Live set.
These accusations have further tainted Bill Murray’s image as an actor, and we’re not sure how he’s going to bounce back from this.
Source: Showbiz Cheat Sheet
