Bill Murray at the NBR

Every time I think Bill Murray is a perfect and unimprovable paragon of cool, he does something to get cooler. Like this, his speech introducing writer/director Sofia Coppola at last night's National Board of Review Awards. Murray was perfectly suited to the task of winging an introduction for Coppola: She directed him in a titanic performance in 2003's "Lost In Translation," and he has for many years engaged in eccentrically good-natured public appearances that have added up a unique kind of improvisational performance art. (My favorite was last year at SXSW, when Murray showed up at an Austin joint and began tending bar, sloshing out slugs of tequila to the clientele, no matter what they'd ordered.) Anyway, here's Murray at the NBR, chewing on Red Hots and, in a deceptively easygoing fashion, making some moving points about life, work and the places where they meet.

..why do you encourage these people? Because now she's had this success, she's had this work, she has this life, she has this family, she has this thing going, and now is when people like you have chosen well to say, 'Let's give this person another boost, let's give this person another boost to say keep going, because now life will come to you hard, like it's come to everyone that's lived long enough. It comes hard and it gets in the way of your career; it stops your career, it stunts your life -- not necessarily your life, but it definitely will make your career go left. You show me an actor doing a shit movie, I'll show you a guy with a bad divorce. [Audience laughs.] Right? Right? [Looking around the room.] You know who I'm talking about.

Read the whole thing.

• [Anonymous]

  True Story:
  I used to live in Pacific grove, near pebble beach golf course. One day I was buying smokes at Ron’s Liquor when bill Murray came in with his 2 amateur golf partners. He seemed to know the liquor store owner quite well (lol) Ron introduced me to Bill Murray saying I was the manager of another business down the street. Bill introduced his partners, saying one was a doctor and the other was a lawyer or some such professions and he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, Brian was it? What is it you do again?” I told him “I’m a comedian, what do you do?”
  he gave me that cocked-head-fingers-pointing-like-guns expression and said “Ha Hah! You got me man!”

  I once saw an article in FHM proclaiming Bill Murray to be the worlds best smart-ass, but I got HIM one day…..where do I pick up the statue?

• [Anonymous]

  is there any video of this ? dying to see it.

• [eee]

  Bill at NYC Karaoke

  with pictures

  • [PaulR]

    I’m going to sic the FCU – Fact Checkers Unit on you.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPo9sCqza98

    /Bill Murray’s got a nice pad, man.

• [PaulR]

  Ooops, clicked on the wrong Reply: that was meant for marcoo

• [marcoo]

  so i’m out one night in Santa Monica with my brother, and we’re cruising some bars, hanging out, drinking. i go to the can and walk up to the urinal and start to take a piss. i’m minding my own business when in walks this guy and starts to take a piss in MY urinal. MY URINAL… he actually nudges me over… i look up ready to peel a strip off this guy and its Bill Motherfucking Murray. by now i’ve heard of his penchant for this, so i decide to turn the tables, so instead i tell him “no one will EVER believe YOU!” and i pee on his shoes… True Story.

• [Anonymous]

  So I was visiting my friend out in Santa Monica for the day, she works the reception desk at this pretty upscale hotel and she’s always telling me stories about which B-list celebrity is there that week.

  Anyway she was on break and we were sitting down having dinner together in the bar when fuckin’ BILL MURRAY walks up, leans over and picks a piece of potato off my plate with his bare fingers and just pops it in his mouth. I just sort of stare at him and he’s looking me right in the eye and smiling as he chews and swallows.

  “And you know what the best part is?” he finally says. “No one will ever believe you.” And he walks away.

  Man, fuck Bill Murray.

• [Faustus]

  A couple weeks ago I was just sitting outside having a smoke and minding my own business when a pizza man came up to me. He asked if I had ordered a pizza. I told him no I wasnt the guy, then the delivery man took off his cap and i was suprised as shit to see that it was Bill Murray. As I gazed in amazement he took a cheap shot and punch me in the kidney. He took my wallet, left me the pizza and whispered ‘No one is ever going to believe you.’ Then he kicked dirt in my eyes and disappeared. The worst of all was the fact that the pizza was canadian bacon and I hate Canadian bacon.

  • [Anonymous]

    This week I bought a hot dog from a street vendor. I walked to the corner to cross the crosswalk to head back to work, and while I was standing, holding my hot dog slightly away from my body to avoid dripping condiments on myself, a man quickly stepped around me and took a bite of the hot dog. The thing didn’t even leave my hand– he just took a bite right off the end! Even more, when he looked up I saw it was Bill Motherfucking Murray! He looked me in the eyes and said, “No one is ever going to believe you.” Then he stepped onto the bus that had just stopped and rode away.

  • [PaulR]

    If the story is posted by an anonymous person, I wouldn’t beleive it. Yours MUST be true.

    If you can find Issue 32 of Philosophy Now (June/July 2001), you can read Rodents to Freedom where Matthew Coniam says “that Groundhog Day explains existentialism more entertainingly than Sartre.”

    Bill Murray studied philosophy and history at the Sorbonne. I’d guess he’s an existentialist.

    • [PaulR]

      Aaargh!!! I’ve been doing this all week: “believe”, not beleive.

      Oh, and more here:
      Goundhog Day: Breakthrough to the True Self
      http://www.transparencynow.com/groundhog.htm

• [awjtawjt]

  Waitaminit… what part of that was “moving”?