Amid the release of Wes Anderson's Asteroid City and rumours of Bill Murray's romantic entanglement with Kelis, the filmmaker has divulged that he has no plans to stop working with the actor amid multiple allegations of workplace misconduct and harassment.
Having worked together on nine films, including Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox and more, Murray's name is suspiciously missing from the credits of Anderson's latest film, due out this week.
However, his absence was apparently not related to recent allegations, with Anderson setting the story straight in a recent interview with IndieWire.
"My experience with Bill is so extensive. Bill was such a great supporter of me from the very beginning," Anderson said. "I don't want to speak about somebody else's experience, but he's really part of my family. You know, he's my daughter's godfather. In fact, he actually baptized her. He's the one who splashed the water."
He continued:
Bill was supposed to be in the movie [Asteroid City]. It's not a great thing to say, "Well this person was supposed to play this part." Once someone gets a part, you're supposed to say, "Well, this is their part." But in this case, because there was some confusion about what happened with Bill. He was supposed to play the motel manager who Steve Carell plays, and Bill got COVID four days before he was supposed to start shooting. He was in Ireland and in the case of our movie, we had schedules of so many people that are all puzzled around. The people who Bill was supposed to play scenes with were going to be gone by the time he cleared the COVID protocols and stuff. And in fact, he was quite sick. So Bill missed his part and Steve Carell came in quite suddenly. He was great, I loved having him. I met him, he arrived, and we were immediately shooting.
Then when Bill got better, he came to Spain [where Asteroid shot]. At the end of the movie, we finished the movie, and Bill and I got in a car and drove to France. It was a great way to finish but it was the first time I hadn't had him in a movie in a long time.
Murray stands accused of inappropriate on-set behaviour in incidents involving Geena Davis and Lucy Liu, as well as unspecified staff members on the set of Aziz Ansari's Being Mortal.
Anderson has two new films on deck, one reportedly involving Michael Cera, Jeff Goldblum and Benicio Del Toro, as well as a Roald Dahl adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade. It remains unclear if Murray is involved in either project.
Having worked together on nine films, including Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox and more, Murray's name is suspiciously missing from the credits of Anderson's latest film, due out this week.
However, his absence was apparently not related to recent allegations, with Anderson setting the story straight in a recent interview with IndieWire.
"My experience with Bill is so extensive. Bill was such a great supporter of me from the very beginning," Anderson said. "I don't want to speak about somebody else's experience, but he's really part of my family. You know, he's my daughter's godfather. In fact, he actually baptized her. He's the one who splashed the water."
He continued:
Bill was supposed to be in the movie [Asteroid City]. It's not a great thing to say, "Well this person was supposed to play this part." Once someone gets a part, you're supposed to say, "Well, this is their part." But in this case, because there was some confusion about what happened with Bill. He was supposed to play the motel manager who Steve Carell plays, and Bill got COVID four days before he was supposed to start shooting. He was in Ireland and in the case of our movie, we had schedules of so many people that are all puzzled around. The people who Bill was supposed to play scenes with were going to be gone by the time he cleared the COVID protocols and stuff. And in fact, he was quite sick. So Bill missed his part and Steve Carell came in quite suddenly. He was great, I loved having him. I met him, he arrived, and we were immediately shooting.
Then when Bill got better, he came to Spain [where Asteroid shot]. At the end of the movie, we finished the movie, and Bill and I got in a car and drove to France. It was a great way to finish but it was the first time I hadn't had him in a movie in a long time.
Murray stands accused of inappropriate on-set behaviour in incidents involving Geena Davis and Lucy Liu, as well as unspecified staff members on the set of Aziz Ansari's Being Mortal.
Anderson has two new films on deck, one reportedly involving Michael Cera, Jeff Goldblum and Benicio Del Toro, as well as a Roald Dahl adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade. It remains unclear if Murray is involved in either project.
