Do we like Bill Murray?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Nothing harmful in his own words turned up, but several people have accused him of poor behaviour on sets, and he's admitted the 2022 kiss.
Bill Murray grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, and came up through Chicago comedy before joining Saturday Night Live in 1976, replacing Chevy Chase. Meatballs gave him his first big film role in 1979. Decades later he reinvented himself as the sad-eyed star of Rushmore and Lost in Translation, which earned him an Oscar nomination in 2003.
The big stoush is the 2022 Being Mortal set. A woman on the crew complained about his behaviour, production was suspended and the film never recovered. Murray says he kissed her through a mask as a joke, and that they knew each other. Puck reported a private settlement of about $100,000. He later told the New York Times it still bothers him and that he felt unfairly treated. The woman has never spoken publicly.
It's not the first time colleagues have raised concerns. Lucy Liu said in 2000 that his comments to her on the Charlie's Angels set were inexcusable, and she later said they'd made peace. Richard Dreyfuss said in a 2019 interview that Murray threw an ashtray at him on What About Bob?, and Murray said the pair didn't get along. Geena Davis alleged in her memoir that he screamed at her on the Quick Change set. Murray answered with “Outrageous!”
On the harm test, there's very little. My searches found nothing from him on trans people, vaccines, climate or migrants. His one real political moment was in 2018, when he praised the Republican tax overhaul as a good thing for business, and said Democrats were “not speaking to everyone at once”. That's a political opinion, not a campaign against anyone, and I found no pattern of recent work with people who push harm.
The good stuff is real, if small-scale. In 2017 he reportedly bought every ticket to a bluegrass show in Charleston and handed them to strangers in the queue. He won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2016 and an Emmy for Olive Kitteridge in 2014.
So where does that leave us? Nothing new has turned up on him lately that I could confirm, so this rests on the old record. He passes the harm check easily. On the nice test it's a close call, because the kind gestures and the accusations from colleagues both sit in the file. You can love Groundhog Day and still keep an eyebrow raised.