STACK April 2016 Issue 138

36 / 98

visit DVD&BD FEATURE
36 APRIL 2016
DVD
&
BD
You gotta start somewhere...
Following comedy stints on the National Lampoon
Radio Hour and TV’s Saturday Night Live in the
mid-seventies, Murray made his movie debut in Ivan
Reitman’s summer camp comedy Meatballs (1979) as
head counsellor Tripper, after an opportunity to appear
in Animal House fell through. The following year he
played Hunter S. Thompson in the biopic Where the
Buffalo Roam (1980), hanging out with the gonzo
journalist on his ranch to get into character. “I took on
another persona that was hard to shake,” he recalls.
“I still have Hunter in me.”
HAROLD RAMIS PHASE
Murray made a further five films with Meatballs’ co-writer Ramis,
who would alternate between writing, acting and directing. Most of
them rank among his most successful and best work – Stripes (1981),
Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989) and
Groundhog Day (1993). His fruitful collaboration with Ramis came to an
end on Groundhog Day – Murray was involved in divorce proceedings at
the time, and disagreements over the tone of the film (philosophical or
comedic) strained their working relationship.
DRAMATIC PHASE
Every comic actor has one, and Murray has the ability to be as cynical as
he can be deadpan. “I don’t know what my fans are going to think, it’s
definitely not what they’re used to from me,” he said of his role in The
Razor’s Edge (1984). The film proved to be a disastrous foray
into drama for the actor, tanking badly at the box office
following the success of Ghostbusters the same year.
He fared better in Sofia Coppola’sLost in Translation
(2003), garnering critical acclaim and an Oscar
nomination for Best Actor. “It was cool that
an Oscar nomination never happened for a
long time, and then it was cool that it did
happen,” he noted. GARFIELD PHASE
“I thought it would be kind
of fun, because doing a voice
is challenging,” Murray says
of his decision to voice the
eponymous comic strip cat
in a live-action version of
Garfield (2004). The fact
that he mistook screenwriter
Joel Cohen for one of the
Coen brothers was another
reason he did it, only to later
realise his error. That didn’t
stop him from appearing
in the 2006 sequel,
however. Playing himself in
Zombieland (2009), he’s
asked if he has any regrets,
and quips: “Garfield, maybe.”
WES ANDERSON PHASE
Intersecting with Murray's dramatic phase is his collaboration with master of whimsy
Anderson, who has monopolised Murray for all of his films since Rushmore in 1998.
Murray is to Anderson what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton (the director reportedly always writes
with Bill in mind) and has appeared in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with
Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Moonrise
Kingdom (2012) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
BILL
MURRAY
1979
2004
1980
1993
1995
2014
1998
2009
2003
2012
1984
2007
2001