Bill Murray has spoken publicly about the on-set incident that led to the suspension of Being Mortal, the 2022 film directed by Aziz Ansari. Production was halted following a complaint filed against Murray, who has now given a fuller account of what occurred and how it affected both the film and his reputation.
In an interview with The New York Times and its podcast The Daily, Murray said he continues to think regularly about the incident. “I don’t go too many days or weeks without thinking of what happened on Being Mortal,” he said.
The incident took place during the early days of the pandemic, while cast and crew were masked and confined indoors during filming. Murray said that during a long day on set, he attempted to lighten the mood by kissing a colleague through both of their masks. “It wasn’t like I touched her. I gave her a kiss through a mask, and she was wearing a mask. And she wasn’t a stranger,” he explained. He described the act as something he had done before in different circumstances and had previously been met with laughter. “To me it’s still funny… It’s still stupid. That’s all it was.”
Production on Being Mortal was suspended by the studio following a complaint. Murray criticized the handling of the situation, saying there was no attempt to resolve it through dialogue. “There was no conversation, there was nothing. There was no peacemaking. It just went to this lunatic arbitration,” he said. He also described the studio’s human resources process as harsh. “It was stopped by the human rights or HR of the Disney corporation, which is probably a little bit more strident than some other countries.”
Murray said he was unaware of any underlying issues that may have influenced how the gesture was received. “It turned out there were preexisting conditions and all this kind of stuff. I’m like, ‘What?’ How is anyone supposed to know anything like that?”
When asked about lessons learned, Murray responded, “You can teach an old dog new tricks.” He said he had misjudged the situation and that the experience changed how he views interactions with others. Still, he stood by his intent, calling it an attempt to bring some lightness to a heavy story.
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The incident resulted in a $100,000 settlement, and the film was never completed. Based on Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, the project was to star Murray alongside Ansari, Seth Rogen, and Keke Palmer.
Murray said that the fallout from the incident led people to reexamine his past behavior. When asked about earlier allegations, including being difficult on set or behaving inappropriately, he expressed frustration. “When someone has an episode like mine on this Being Mortal thing, the world goes searching for more proof that this person is a monster. I’ve had interactions with hundreds of thousands of people over 40, 50 years. Now, you can come up with half a dozen. If you really worked, you’d probably come up with a couple dozen.”
Responding to past claims from Geena Davis, Lucy Liu, and Richard Dreyfuss, Murray either denied the specifics or challenged the accuracy. Regarding a story about throwing an ashtray at Dreyfuss, he claimed it was aimed at the ceiling, not the actor. “If I’d have thrown it at Dreyfuss, I’d have hit him,” he said. He dismissed Davis’ account as “outrageous.”
In earlier comments made shortly after the incident in 2022, Murray described efforts to speak directly with the colleague involved. “We’re both professionals. We like each other’s work. We like each other, I think. And if you can’t really get along and trust each other, there’s no point in going further working together or making a movie,” he told CNBC at the time.
