Not that Bill Murray needs any help in the “being beloved by all” department, but there were a couple interesting tidbits about him in the Vulture piece “24 Things I Learned While Writing My Book About Wes Anderson,” by Matt Zoller Seitz. Who, as clever readers may have already gleaned, recently wrote a book about Wes Anderson. I hope the book has a whimsical cover with big yellow text and old timey pictures of trains. (Ooh, I was partially right).
One bit, Bill Murray only made $9,000 on Rushmore:
16. Bill Murray worked on Rushmore for scale.
He got a piece of the profits, but his day rate was Screen Actors Guild minimum. By Anderson’s estimate, Murray made about $9,000 from acting in Rushmore.
Sure, but you can’t put a price on all those monochromatic suit-and-tie combos.
Not only that, but when the studio didn’t want to spring for a helicopter shot, Murray offered to pay for it himself, even though it cost almost three times his salary:
17. When Disney didn’t want to pay for a helicopter shot for Rushmore’s “A Quick One While He’s Away” montage, Murray wrote a check to cover the costs of chopper rental.
The helicopter shot ended up being cut from the film anyway, but Anderson still has Murray’s un-cashed check for $25,000, $16,000 more than he was paid for acting in the movie.
Here’s that montage:
This sequence makes me misty. Wes Anderson’s recent stuff all seems so mannered compared to this. (And did you catch the Pagoda cameo at 1:30? RIP.)
Also, remember how Bill Murray supposedly had to protect Wes Anderson from Gene Hackman on the set of Royal Tenenbaums? There’s a bit more on Hackman and his awesome curmudgeonliness:
18. The role of Royal Tenenbaum was written for Gene Hackman “against his wishes.”
Hackman told Anderson, “I don’t like it when people write for me, because you don’t know me, and I don’t want what you think is me.”
That seems like a reasonable pet peeve for a famous actor that people think they know, but on the other hand, the real Hackman supposedly called Wes Anderson a c*nt and told him to “pull up your pants and act like a man,” which, to be fair, sounds exactly like something Royal Tenenbaum would say.