Playboy's 20Q: Bill Murray

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[Q] Playboy: Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood and other celebrities who won't be pitchmen at home appear in foreign ads. Did you consult them for Lost in Translation, in which you portray an American star enticed to do Japanese commercials?

[A] Murray: No, but I remember being in Japan 10 years ago for a golf tournament. I turned over a Kirin beer coaster, and there was Harrison Ford's picture. He's a guy who would never be caught dead doing a commercial here. He had a bottle in his hand and the most uncomfortable look on his face, like, "I can't believe I'm shilling." When Sofia Coppola, the director of Lost in Translation, sent me the script, she included a photo and said, "This is what I have in mind." It was Brad Pitt in an ad for espresso in a can, and he had the same grimace: "I can't believe I'm selling this can of coffee." That influenced me when I had to do my own shtick.

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[Q] Playboy: You spend much of the film with Scarlett Johansson. Is this the feel-good movie of the year for the 50-something man who fantasizes about a younger girl who's infatuated with him?

[A] Murray: I don't know if it's a feel-good movie. I don't think we'll get our own TV network, but I do think this film has an objective point of view about what it's like to be away from your primary relationship. A man who's 8,000 miles from home meets a woman who's 8,000 miles from home, and they're both dissatisfied, in a country where neither speaks the language. How do you spend a week with the only other person you can communicate with and not reach the precipice of closeness? That's where the movie takes place—on the precipice of closeness.

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[Q] Playboy: Did you discover some serene art such as flower arranging during your sojourn in Japan?

[A] Murray: I got a bonsai tree. I kept it alive as long as I was there and left it in good hands. Mostly I savored humorous things about the Japanese. The formal bowing is just sort of a shtick. They bow when they meet, and they bow repeatedly. I couldn't resist the Abbott and Costello thing, bowing and hitting heads with people. They got a huge kick out of it. I learned certain things are taboo for them but okay for us, like putting your feet on the table or rubbing your stomach with your napkin.

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[Q] Playboy: Did you play much golf in Japan? We hear they're fanatics about divot replacement.

[A] Murray: I didn't notice that they were fanatics about divot replacement. I'm a fanatic about divot replacement. They have little girl caddies called ducks, as in quack, quack ducks, because they wear these hard-billed hats in case they get hit by golf balls. When you meet your caddy on the first tee, she's this beautiful geisha kind of duck. They don't carry the clubs. They pull the carts in complete makeup, but it's 95 degrees in Fukuoka, down in the south. So around the 12th hole, the makeup starts to melt, and what you thought was a 26-year-old girl becomes someone in her 60s. At the end of a round they don't even want to make eye contact, because their makeup is completely gone.

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[Q] Playboy: How did you become such a stickler about golf rules and etiquette?

[A] Murray: I was a greenskeeper as well as a caddy, so I know how much work it takes to make a course perfect. I got in the habit of walking into the bunker with a rake so I could hit the shot and then start raking. I've made the mistake of seeing a footprint and spasmodically raking it before hitting a shot. That's a violation of the rules, so I would assess myself a penalty. Same thing on the greens. Rather than looking at the read of my own putt, I'd repair other people's ball marks. It drives me nuts. It's like littering in a national park. I found a used diaper once in Olympic National Park. I thought that was the all-time low. That was before I had kids. Now I can understand it. They probably abandoned their kid a few hundred yards later.

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[Q] Playboy: All golfers have been tempted to move a ball to a better lie. Have you ever given in?

[A] Murray: No. I like playing by the rules. I think the rules are sometimes unfair, but it's challenging to play by them. If you ask someone his handicap and he says nine, okay, which nine is it? There are very few actual nine handicaps. It's either the nine that's really a 15 because he can't bear saying his handicap is in double digits, or he's a two who lies. You see people roll their balls over in the fairway. These guys are players and commentators in the sports world, and you think, Christ, how can this guy do that? It's like plagiarism.

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[Q] Playboy: Your antics at the Pebble Beach celebrity tournament—hitting trick balls, unorthodox attire—are well known. If Bing Crosby had seen such behavior at his tournament, would he have been shocked?

[A] Murray: Bing Crosby had more fun playing golf than anybody. He was a great golfer. He was a two handicap. Everything I've ever done on a golf course, he did. I hit a spinning golf ball a couple years ago—"Holy christ! This guy, how dare he?" I've seen footage of Crosby doing the same thing, hitting trick golf balls. That tournament 30 or 40 years ago was the greatest party going. Those guys used to play drunk. Seriously. It started as a party and a chance to fill Monterey hotel rooms in the winter. (continued on page 138)Bill Murray(continued from page 127) Crosby died playing golf in Spain. He made all that happen.

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[Q] Playboy: Would you venture to predict when women will be invited to join the Augusta National Golf Club?

[A] Murray: Women can play as guests at Augusta, and I think that's what it's going to be for a while. Most male golfers feel like, "Hey, when I get into Augusta, I'm going to see what I can do about getting another woman in there, but why aren't I in there?" [laughs] Most women don't give a hoot about it. When there's a woman member of Augusta, she'll be a billionaire. All those guys are billionaires. Should we get Martha Stewart in there? Would that make everybody feel better? I think it's a bullshit issue.

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[Q] Playboy: You're part owner of several minor-league baseball teams. Did you scout Japan for talent?

[A] Murray: No, but I watched a lot of baseball, and those guys pitch a lot of innings. The same guy pitches every third game. And their fans are not fair-weather fans. There's a party out in the stands at all times.

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[Q] Playboy: How do you try to entertain your teams' fans?

[A] Murray: In St. Paul we pick two people from the crowd every night—one from St. Paul and one from Minneapolis—and we have them fight in big sumo-wrestling outfits. During one game the managers of both teams got kicked out, and we asked them to put on the suits during the seventh inning and fight. It lasted forever. The umpires didn't make them start the game. They just acted like they were taking a break, like they didn't see what was going on. We also have a hot tub over the left-field bleachers, and you can rent the tub for you and your friends.

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[Q] Playboy: Have you worked out any conflict you may have had about being born too late to be a member of the Rat Pack?

[A] Murray: We all have to deal with that in our own way, but we were our own Saturday Night Live rat pack. We definitely had our own great time, and we were really fierce when we were together. When we were together, you didn't fuck with us.

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[Q] Playboy: Can you put SNL in the context of American culture for us?

[A] Murray: I think that's People's job.

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[Q] Playboy: Does SNL have an alumni association, complete with a newsletter to keep everyone up-to-date?

[A] Murray: No, but the 25th-anniversary show felt like an alumni association. For the first time I was able to get out of the way of "Who's funny?" and "Who's not funny?" and enjoy it. I was able to laugh at people I never found particularly funny, because I was pulling for them. The old guys were in the first sketch, and we rocked. Then I drank wine for the next two hours. Other people still had to work, and I'm like, "Woo, woo," walking the aisles, watching everyone doing their thing and struggling. That was the real luxury.

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[Q] Playboy: You're also a Second City veteran. Why does Chicago produce a disproportionate number of comics?

[A] Murray: A lot of it has to do with the Second City training. The Chicago style, its system of educating actors, was informative because there's a standard there and no schmuck baiting. You get to play and have fun, but ultimately you have to be able to deliver the goods. People ask me how they can make it. I always say, "Go to a place where there's a great show with a lot of good actors, and watch that show for weeks. Every night is different. Watch how they mess with rhythm, and see how they accelerate, decelerate, how they emphasize." In Chicago there have always been a lot of people to watch.

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[Q] Playboy: Would you go oeuvre to oeuvre against Adam Sandier, starting with Meatballs and The Waterboy?

[A] Murray: I've never seen The Waterboy. You've got to let someone's early movies slide a little bit. He's a sentimental slob to me. He's like a schmaltzmobile, but I think he's a nice person. There was some interesting stuff in the movie about the devil, Little Nicky. It wasn't a box-office success, but I thought he made some really aggressive choices in it, some really odd, queer moves that I liked a lot. That's the only thing I can say about it. If we start comparing movies, somebody's going to cry.

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[Q] Playboy: You were raised in the Roman Catholic Church. A nun we know ditched her habit years ago and slipped into fishnet stockings. Don't you think the hierarchy might have seen trouble coming?

[A] Murray: I have a sister who is a nun. She used to have a lot of priests hitting on her all the time. It's not like that's pedophilia. It's not a law; it's just a vow. It's a fact that the clergy has been a haven for people who aren't comfortable with their sexuality. That's not to say all their works in the collar are criminal. I'm not shocked, because in every community there's always some whisper about someone. A Jesuit priest shocked me 25 years ago when he said, "The question is, are we even necessary anymore?" I thought, Wow, that's pessimistic. But he saw what was coming: the decreased influence of the church. Anglicization of the church was the wrong idea. Call me a snob, but I felt there was real power in the Latin words. The English translation is anemic.

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[Q] Playboy: You studied philosophy at the Sorbonne after you'd achieved success. Were you pursuing a Jerry Lewis strategy of French adulation, or were you genuinely interested in Descartes?

[A] Murray: I like Descartes. Basically, after Ghostbusters, I didn't wish to compete for love on that level in the U.S. You're sort of radioactive when you have a hit movie. When you walk down the street, people scream because they saw you last night. It always made me uncomfortable, because I like what I do, but I'm happy just to get the laughs in the theater. Then I had to think about how I was going to proceed, rather than just continue without any reflection. There were things I wanted to see in France. I love the language and the customs. There's something sort of grounding about Paris. The weather is so bad, it's gray every day. I love it.

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[Q] Playboy: An orthodontist we know commented on Sigourney Weaver's under-bite. You've acted with her in films and onstage. Does she bring a certain maxillary energy to her performances?

[A] Murray: Yeah, she's got some serious choppers there. She's a Yalie, and I think that had an effect on her lower jaw. I met this young kid a couple of weeks ago who was a huge Ghostbusters fan. He's now a high school graduate, and he said, "What was that with Sigourney Weaver? Were there sparks there?" I thought that was such a great thing for a kid to say.

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[Q] Playboy: In Groundhog Day you star as a TV weatherman condemned to repeat the same day over and over. Now the term Groundhog Day is almost synonymous with being trapped in the same routine. What gives?

[A] Murray: Danny Rubin wrote one of the greatest screenplays ever. His idea was to take a cultural event and write about what it is to be a human being, struggling to live the same day over and over and trying not to be defeated in the effort to reach your potential. I've got this Sisyphean struggle: "How am I going to get through it with a sense of humor? How am I going to get through it all?" The fact that the movie is entertaining as well makes it a true piece of art.

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[Q] Playboy: In Rushmore you play a millionaire with working-class roots who befriends a prep school student from a similar background. Did your private school education inform your performance?

[A] Murray: Yeah. I had that experience. I went to a school where there was a lot of money, and I didn't have a lot of money. I had to believe that money didn't mean so much. I've managed to make it on an economic level now, but I'm much more proud of knowing how to treat people and not take too much out of the world for my needs. People tend to light up when they see me because I've made movies that make people laugh. There's an obligation to acknowledge that. I believe that touch of joy is enough to get you through the day. Life can be so lonely, and you want to feel like you're not alone. That's why people join up, if only for a moment. Hey, we're not alone.