Bill Murray is notoriously private, which is why it was a shock when he did a surprise Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Friday in support of his new movie, "Monuments Men."
The actor was extremely forthcoming in his responses to questions concerning both the personal and the professional aspects of his life, but one revelation in particular, about his somewhat head-scratching involvement in 2004's "Garfield," was particularly amusing. In a long response to a query about whether there would be a "Garfield 3," Murray explained that there probably wouldn't be -- and it was a fluke that he took on the first film to begin with.
I had a hilarious experience with Garfield. I only read a few pages of it, and I kind of wanted to do a cartoon movie, because I had looked at the screenplay and it said "Joel Cohen" on it. And I wasn't thinking clearly, but it was spelled Cohen, not Coen. I love the Coen brothers movies. I think that Joel Coen is a wonderful comedic mind.So I didn't really bother to finish the script, I thought "he's great, I'll do it."
Of course, Murray eventually realized his mistake, but at that point had already committed to the movie. The actor said that he was ready to record his voiceover for the titular computer-animated cat, but that most of the live footage had already been shot, and was difficult to work around. And trying to re-write Garfield's dialogue -- some of which was quite bad, Murray revealed -- was even harder, since it had to be shoehorned into existing scenes.
Murray said his exasperation led him to confront "the misspelled Joel Cohen" about the film's problems, which were so numerous that the editor ultimately quit the project. After countless hours in the recording booth, Murray said he and filmmakers "managed to fix it, sort of," and "Garfield" went on to become a modest hit, prompting a sequel, 2006's "A Tale of Two Kitties" -- or as Murray dubbed it, "that second miscarriage."
Despite his negative experience with the first film, Murray agreed to shoot the follow-up, provided filmmakers not put him in the position of working around existing footage once again. That condition was immediately ignored, he said.
"The second one was beyond rescue," Murray wrote. " ... [T]hey sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one. ... The girl, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, she was sweet. In the second movie they dressed her like a homeless person. You knew it wasn't gonna go well."
The rest of Murray's AMA is equally brutally honest, though he does reveal several positive filmmaking experiences to outweigh the bad of "Garfield." The whole exchange is worth a read. Here's hoping Murray never changes.
[h/t Vulture]
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