The greatest role of Bill Murray’s life has been playing Bill Murray | Hacker News Reader

The greatest role of Bill Murray’s life has been playing Bill Murray

washingtonpost.com

130 pointssamclemens38 comments

Turns out Murray finally called the reporter a few hours after this article was published:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/w...

That had to be timed on purpose. Absolutely beautiful.

It doesnt say if he got the 800 number in the end, he probably did. god such a long piece just so he can be friends with Bill Murray. and yet, totally worth it!

And then he popped up in the White House Briefing Room today:

http://wgntv.com/2016/10/21/bill-murray-crashes-white-house-...

I've always loved how Bill Murray toys with, and flat out ignores the media. It's funny how the reporter seems to feel entitled to be able to speak with Bill Murray. He makes it out to be a big deal, almost a personal insult and disservice, when he doesn't get to. It's simply foreign to him why someone who doesn't know him doesn't want to speak to him. The only reason he can come up with is that Bill Murray must be mad at him!

To hear these stories is refreshing, and it really flips the common narrative of movie stars looking for all the attention they can get on it's head.

The reporter was right though. Bill Murray had actively avoided the reporter because someone else had warned him to.

But what she didn’t tell me, until confirming weeks later in a follow-up call, was that she had been uneasy enough about our interview to send Murray a warning.

Newman pulled up the exchange and read part of it to me over the phone.

Murray was already “horrified,” though we couldn’t determine if that was embarrassment about being singled out for the Twain.

Then he responded to her concerns about me.

“I’ll try to kill this,” he wrote.

The interview? The story? My career?

Yeah, you're correct there. I'm not sure if that makes it much better though. He was even warned by the interviewee that Bill would not like what he was doing.

The other thing is that he is super friendly to random people on the street. I know quite a few people who have bumped into him and he always has some sort of quick joke to tell.

For those curious, the term for this sort of profile where the subject doesn't really participate is a "write-around." And perhaps the most famous example is Frank Sinatra Has A Cold: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-...

So you could call this exact sort of profile a "Write Around the Murray"? http://www.writearoundthemurray.org.au/

Murray Minus Murray.

I still think Murray's Razor's Edge is one of the greatest coming of age, life lesson, philosophy movies. It made me think and more importantly it made me curious about world outside my bubble, about people's motivations, about the point of life and how I should live mine. In a phrase it woke me up. Thanks.

It's too bad audiences couldn't get past expectations for a slapstick comedy.

I have avoided seeing the movie because the book is so good. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.

I read the book and I still really liked the movie. I think it was done pretty well. Book was better but it always is I guess.

>Book was better but it always is I guess.

One title to prove you wrong: Orlando.

If you liked Razor's Edge I would highly recommend Maugham's magnus opus, Of Human Bondage. That book blew me away.

stories of random encounters with bill are my favorite. whether true or not, i think it says something that most are believable.

from the comment section on WP: Personal Bill Murray Story - A woman I know (a mother of 6 kids) was working in a small town Montana clothing store when Bill Murray walked in. He asked her to show him the nicest woman's garment they had in the store. She showed him a winter coat and he asked her to model it for him. He told her he would take it and when she started to box it up he told her "the coat is for you Mary." I am sure that she had never personally owned something as nice in her life, given to her in such a generous manner

Exactly the same as the last 10 fluff articles on Bill Murray. I love the guy but this is one of those standby stories you keep around for when you don't have anything better to run.

I never understood why John Murray never made it as big as big brother Bill. He was hilarious in Moving Violations.

because when the going gets tough, the tough get going in the pants. Also when I see that other guy in some tv show or movie, I'm like "Cujo!". I still have it somewhere on betamax.

Bill's older brother Brian Doyle-Murray has had a pretty good career, though.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0236519

What we need is a Bill Murray that creates other Bill Murrays!

Any regrets?

Maybe Garfield.

Everyone knows Lorenzo Music was the only true voice of Garfield, anyway.

Murray and Gurdjieff. Now that was unexpected.

A Very Murray Christmas is one of the coolest and enjoyable movies I had seen last year.

Which is essentially the role he played in the recent live action Jungle Book movie.

Why is this on HN?

Is this site no longer moderated?

You mean your comment? Yeah, it's gotten bad like that.

If you mean the article, it's on HN because HN is a social bookmarking site, and it was upvoted.

"Social bookmarking" has come to mean "hipster fetishism".

This site has been turning to shit for a while.

Or maybe it's not about intellectually lazy media-created categories like "hipsters", but more about sincere interest in an artist whose career spans 4+ decades -- far beyond when "hipster" was even a thing in the modern (not the Norman Mailer 50s) sense.

Someone got triggered.

If by that you mean "responded with an argument to a vague and contentless accusation", then yes.

Is there a more childish response to an argument than "ha! it got to you"?

(Not to mention that age-wise I'm far off from the "hipster" demographic, and was watching Bill Murray way before hipster was even a term. Not everybody is 20-something on the internet).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich

I dont understand why people are voting this up on hacker news. Seriously folks...

It's a pleasant article on an interesting person. It need not be all technical discussion, all the time.

A lack of understanding is a good basis for a question and a poor basis for an opinion

It's Friday?

In all seriousness though, hacker mentality is exemplified in people like Bill. His quotes in this piece on "waking up" by rattling things around is a great perspective to have for budding entrepreneurs, or for "hackers" stuck at the office at 5pm on a Friday.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com