Bill Murray revealed the movie role he still regrets not taking to this day, and it was one that Clint Eastwood offered him.
Speaking on “The Howard Stern Show” podcast, the 74-year-old actor was asked by Stern if he’s “ever watched a film and said I want to act with this guy so bad?”
The “Ghostbusters” star said definitely, and then shared that he was once offered a role in what turned out to be Eastwood’s 1986 military movie “Heartbreak Ridge,” The Daily Beast reported.
“A long time ago I was watching the Clint Eastwood movies of the day, like ‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot’ or whatever the hell movies he was making then,” Murray responded, “and I thought: ‘His sidekick gets killed, and he avenges, but the sidekick gets like a great part, a great death scene.’”
“I was like, I got to call this guy,” he added. “So I called him out of the blue, and he said, ‘Would you ever want to do another service comedy?’ Because I just made ‘Stripes’ and he had this great idea for an enormous Navy thing.”
“And when he said, ‘Would you ever want to do another service comedy?’ like jeez, ‘Would I become like Abbott and Costello?’ I had to do like military movies? And I said, ‘Well, God, I guess maybe I shouldn’t,’” Murray continued.
Even after all these years, the “Groundhog Day” star said when he sees Eastwood, he still mentions to him how he should’ve taken it.
“But it’s one of the few regrets I have is that I didn’t do it,” Murray said. “Because it was a big-scale thing, and I would have gotten a great – I don’t know if I’d have gotten a great death scene, it was more of a comedy, that one – but it was great. He had access to World War II boats and he could have like, made a flotilla and stuff, and there was some cool stuff in it.”
“And when I see him, I’m like: ‘I’m sorry, I wish I’d done that, Clint, I’m really sorry,’” he added. “He’s certainly well over it. He’s a very resilient fella.”
During his appearance on Travis and Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, Murray talked about the early days of his career on “Saturday Night Live” and disagreed with others who’ve said that the late-night sketch comedy is just not as good as it once was, as previously reported.
“People always give me a hard time about, ‘Oh, the original show was so great and it’s lousy now,’” Murray said, per Variety. “And I say, ‘No, it’s not.’ The show that’s on now, they do stuff that’s just as good as anybody ever did, all the time.”
At the time, the actor also said he would “certainly” come back to help celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary in 2025, which he eventually did in February.
“It was surprisingly emotional,” the movie star shared after his appearance on the show, per the “Today” show. “I wept three times in the show. Yeah, it really got to me.”
Related: Bill Murray Names Which Comedian He’d Want To Play Him In Upcoming ‘SNL’ Movie
