Hollywood star Bill Murray was at the top of his game in 1993 when he played notorious weatherman Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog – named after the holiday celebrated on February 2nd. Phil, the critic has become trapped in a permanent time loop. He was cursed to live the same day continuously. While the character nearly drove himself insane on screen, Murray himself also hated every minute of the film’s shoot. The director himself, Harold Ramis, later spoke of how “irrational” Murray was during filming.
Ramis was quoted as saying that Murray wanted the film to be a “serious” and “philosophical” adventure, touching on the meaning of life. But Murray’s wishes did not align with Ramis’ plans. He wanted to make the movie a comedy.
To make matters worse for Murray, he is bitten by a groundhog on screen throughout the movie. He recalls that during the iconic car chase scene, Murray was brutalized by the animal “no less than three times”. This, in turn, forced the actor to get some emergency rabies injections.
The deplorable nature of the shoot didn’t stop there for Murray, as he continued to be tormented during a snowball fight alongside his on-screen love interest, Andie MacDowell. In the hilarious moment, Murray takes on a group of kids in an outright snowball fight — but Ramis apparently tells the kids to throw snowballs “as hard as they can” — much to the actor’s chagrin. This wasn’t the only instance where the actor got hurt a lot during the movie.
In an interview years later, McDowell spoke about the scene where she slapped him several times in the movie, saying, “He asked me to really slap him. It’s hard when you hit someone so many times!”
On top of Murray not liking the direction of the film, being bitten by a co-star, and getting hit with snowballs, he was having some difficulties with his home life. At the time of filming, “Murray’s marriage was apparently falling apart,” according to the JOE publication. Three years later, in 1996, Murray divorced his wife, Margaret Kelly.
His constant anger over his situation would explain why Murray is particularly cruel towards his director and friend, Ramis. In an interview in 2004, Ramis told The New Yorker, “Sometimes, Bill was just really inconsequential and unavailable. He was constantly late on set. What I would say to him is just what we say to our kids: ‘You don’t have to throw tantrums to get through.'” What you want. Just say what you want.”
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After the film was released, Murray severed all ties with Ramis of 21 years, essentially ending their friendship. Murray hated the movie so much that any idea of a reboot or remake was scrapped.
MacDowell mentioned the possibility of a reboot in an interview in 2018, but pointed to Murray as the problem.
She said, “People always say, ‘Let’s do Groundhog Day again.'” First of all, Bill Murray would never do that, so you can forget about that. I know him. He won’t.”
The star may have changed his mind since then, however, as he was quoted as “moving to tears” during the Groundhog Day Broadway show. After the show, an emotional Murray said: “The idea…the idea that we have to try again. We just have to try again. It’s a beautiful and powerful idea.”
Groundhog Day is available to watch now.
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