In a newly-released radio interview, Ghostbusters star Bill Murray reflected on some regrets he had over the course of his career – including a Clint Eastwood snub.
The actor, 74, who also appeared in classics like Groundhog Day and Broken Flowers, was interviewed on The Howard Stern Show, and talked about the film he wishes he had worked on back in the ‘80s.
“A long time ago I was watching the Clint Eastwood movies of the day, like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or whatever the movies he was making then, and I thought: ‘His sidekick gets killed, and he avenges, but the sidekick gets like a great part, a great death scene,’” he began, explaining how the Hollywood legend, now 94, inspired the types of films he wanted to do from then on.
“I was like, ‘I got to call this guy!’ So I called him out of the blue, and he said, ‘Would you ever want to do another service comedy?’ Because I just made [military comedy] Stripes and he had this great idea for an enormous Navy thing,” Murray added.
“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.’”
He then ended up declining the offer to co-star on the project of what is now believed to be Heartbreak Ridge (1986), which Eastwood directed and starred in.
Murray now considers that a mistake. He said: “But it’s one of the few regrets I have is that I didn’t do it”.
“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”, he reminisced.
After realising he had made a mistake, Murray apologised to Eastwood for not accepting his offer.
“When I see him, I’m like: ‘I’m sorry, I wish I’d done that Clint, I’m really sorry,’” he recounted. “[But] he’s certainly well over it. He’s a very resilient fella.”