Actors Who Refused To Be In Bill Murray Movies

Some actors could be proclaimed "America's Sweetheart" or "America's Dad," but Bill Murray can make a go at being "America's Fun Uncle." A little dangerous, perpetually aloof, and likely to play oafs, ne'er-do-wells, sad sacks, and party animals, Murray is synonymous, and intertwined, with his characters, and delighting audiences with his inscrutability and emotion-driven acting. Since breaking out as a star on "Saturday Night Live" in the late 1970s, Murray went on to become a dominant comic actor of the 1980s, starring in classics like "Caddyshack," "Stripes," and "Ghostbusters." He eventually leaned into "elder statesman of indie auteur cinema" status, collaborating with and serving as a muse to filmmakers including Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola.

Appearing in a movie with Murray is likely a memorable experience or an artistic exercise, at the least. If not, his co-stars still are attached to projects that will garner a lot of attention from Murray's legions of fans and from millions of moviegoers. But some of Hollywood's biggest stars and most in-demand character actors have turned down the opportunity. Here are the performers who just couldn't say yes to being in a movie with Bill Murray.

Cast members from two of the edgiest comedy shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s also starred in "Ghostbusters": Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd from "Saturday Night Live," and Harold Ramis and Rick Moranis from "SCTV." Another major comic figure from the era, "SCTV" veteran John Candy, was included in the casting plans for the movie too. While writing the screenplay for "Ghostbusters" with Ramis, Aykroyd conjured the role of goofy accountant and neighbor Louis Tully expressly for Candy. It was intended to be a riff on Johnny LaRue, his arrogant, odious womanizer character from "SCTV."

"John Candy was supposed to be the neighbor down the hall, but he didn't like the treatment that I had sent," director Ivan Reitman told Entertainment Weekly. "He didn't get it." Candy suggested that he play the character as a German man who shares his apartment with a large number of dogs. "I said, 'Well, maybe you can do it with an accent, but I don't think all that's really necessary,'" Reitman recalled. Still unmoved, Candy passed on the role, which went to Moranis.

A former pageant winner and model, Kim Basinger broke into acting in the late 1970s, landing one-off roles in a string of episodic TV dramas and movies-of-the-week. She finally landed her first leading film role in the 1981 country-music drama "Hard Country." That film was shot around the same time as "Stripes," a much bigger box-office hit. It also made a way-bigger cultural footprint as one of the best-known Bill Murray movies of them all.

Basinger had essentially locked down the role of "Stripes" romantic lead Stella in the comedy about two slackers who join the U.S. Army for kicks. But her agent asked for a $200,000 salary for his mostly unproven client. That request was a non-starter for producers of the relatively low-budget "Stripes." Basinger departed the movie, and P.J. Soles was hired to replace her.

Eddie Deezen can reasonably stake a claim as the "definitive nerd" working in movies today. The character actor has repeatedly played the stereotypical geeky dweeb, featuring a braying voice, prominent glasses, and other cliché traits. Deezen portrayed that "brand" a lot in late-1970s and early-1980s youthful comedies, including "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "Grease," "Grease 2," "WarGames," and "1941." "Meatballs," a hit summer-camp comedy starring Bill Murray, was one of that period's few major broad comedies with a nerd character in which Deezen didn't play his signature type.

It was Murray's first movie role, as lead counselor Tripper Harrison. Deezen was offered the role of Spaz, a mega-nerdy object of ridicule, but he couldn't do it. When "Meatballs" was filming, Deezen had already committed to a role in "1941," starring Murray's "SNL" cohorts John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. "If I hadn't done '1941,' I would have been in 'Meatballs,'" Deezen told Rogue Cinema. "I would have loved working with Bill Murray."

In the 1970s and 1980s, Jack Nicholson was one of Hollywood's most versatile and charismatic actors, often playing charming rogues and likable bad guys. He won his first of three Academy Awards for playing a restless revolt-leading mental-institution patient in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and in the 1989 blockbuster screen adaptation of "Batman," he played the Joker with such zest and star power that he received top billing over Michael Keaton, who filled the title role. Starting in the late '90s, the aging Nicholson adjusted his acting choices accordingly, playing a string of elderly grumps and curmudgeons in films like "As Good As it Gets," "About Schmidt," and "How Do You Know." 

To that end, Nicholson got an offer to play the title role in the 2014 movie "St. Vincent": Vincent McKenna, a retired and restless war veteran who's befriended by a single mother and her bullied young son. But Nicholson turned it down, per the Boston Globe. He hadn't appeared in a movie since 2010, and according to the Sydney Morning Herald, he is essentially retired. That opened the big role in "St. Vincent," and it went to Bill Murray.

After making his name in the 1960s as a stand-up comedian behind a stage persona of a self-loathing and nervous guy, Woody Allen turned to filmmaking. Between 1971 and 2000, he wrote and directed movies at a rate of about one per year. He usually starred in them, too, which left little time for projects in which he didn't have full creative control.

In the 1990s, he headed the casts of just two feature films, "Scenes from a Mall" and "Antz" — and he nearly co-starred with Bill Murray in the comedy "What About Bob?" The film, which opened in 1991, starred Murray as a therapy-addicted, phobia-addled man whose analyst is on a family vacation while being terrorized by Murray's character. In 1989, the Los Angeles Times announced that production had started on the film, already delayed after Robin Williams bowed out. At that point, Murray was on board as the patient, with Allen in talks to play the psychiatrist. The director originally signed was Garry Marshall, but Allen was a contender to not only star but also direct and take a crack at the screenplay. Allen wound up not being involved with "What About Bob?" in any capacity because he couldn't get out of his exclusive contract with Orion Pictures.

Beginning with "Rushmore" in 1998, every feature film made by acclaimed indie filmmaker Wes Anderson has featured Bill Murray in some way. He's the lead in Anderson's 2004 dramedy "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," portraying the title character, a world-renowned sea-life documentarian in a deep funk following a divorce and the death of his best friend.

James Gray almost landed a role in "The Life Aquatic," despite not being much of an actor. He's a writer and director, best known for "Ad Astra" and "We Own the Night," and he played a small role in the 1997 film "Love Jones," but his scenes were cut. Anderson aggressively pursued his fellow filmmaker for a brief bit in "The Life Aquatic," promising a fun two to three weeks of shooting in Rome.

"I'm thinking, 'No way, no way.' I didn't understand why he wanted to cast me, but he's a friend and probably as a consequence wanted some form of revenge," Gray told IndieWire. Nevertheless, Gray signed on, for the part of documentary film-score composer Wolodarsky. But then he received the shooting schedule, which would have required him to spend five months in Italy. "So I said no," Gray added. The role went to Noah Taylor instead.