Bill Murray Spills About ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘Groundhog Day,’ and ‘Tootsie’ Productions in First Appearance on ‘The View’

For the first time in The View history, legendary comic actor Bill Murray visited the storied panel to discuss his lengthy career, COVID, and a new orchestral project. Yes, you read that right: in all 25 years of the famous ABC talk show, Murray has never — not once! — visited the show to chat with the ladies. Say what? So, naturally, when he dropped by virtually today, the co-hosts had quite a bit to catch up on.

The first matter of business was Murray’s noteworthy absence from The View‘s long list of guests. Why hadn’t Murray visited yet?

“I think you guys wake up too early,” the actor explained with a yawn. “It’s too early.”

With that, it was time to get into business. Joy Behar asked the first question, bringing up Groundhog Day (which released 29 years ago!) in relation to the current cycle of politics, COVID scares, and dreary winter days.

“Well, some of the time I think I’m doing very well, like all of us. And sometimes, we can quietly whisper that there’s something good about COVID,” Murray replied, adding some much-needed Groundhog Day insight. “I think it’s given a lot of us a chance to spend some time with ourselves and to acknowledge what we don’t do very well and what we need to work on. But sometimes it’s lonely. It’s definitely lonely.”

The View busted out their Ghostbusters history next, mentioning recent guest McKenna Grace in relation to the reboot film that released last year. Murray provided some harrowing behind-the-scenes details about filming Ghostbusters in addition.

“Well, physically, that pack is very heavy. And for some reason, the script ends throwing us down on the ground all the time, and we have to get up. You know, it’s not so much the getting down — it’s the getting back up that kills you,” Murray said. “If you had to do your show from the floor, you girls would be miserable! You’d be just miserable.”

Then the conversation bounced back to Behar again, clearly a diehard Murray fan, who asked him about his favorite project to film. After mentioning What About Bob? and Tootsie, Murray opened up about working with some of the most noteworthy actors and directors of his time.

“Well, that’s a very good movie to talk about, Tootsie,” Murray responded. “Because the director, Sydney Pollack, he’s gone now, and Dustin Hoffman was really, really generous as an actor, to me. We had a wonderful relationship.”

Murray continued, explaining the improvisational role he played in filming Tootsie: “Every scene we did together, we just made up right then and there,” he said. “My character didn’t really exist in the screenplay, it was just a character that was suggested by Elaine May as somebody who would help the audience point of view. Every time we got to work, we just got to do whatever we thought was funny. Because Dustin and Sydney had this crazy relationship where Dustin would be very, very demanding.”

The actor joked about how fun it was to be a “fly on the wall” watching Hoffman and Pollack butt heads over certain scenes, watching “two heavyweight” actors go at it. As for What About Bob? — it was Murray’s turn to get a little feisty.

“What About Bob? was really really fun because I got to torture Dreyfuss,” Murray quipped. “That was my job, I got to torture Dreyfuss.”

Looks like a Bill Murray movie marathon is in The View‘s future!

The View airs weekdays on ABC at 11/10c.

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