SALON

Thursday, Sep 13, 2012 5:45 PM UTC

Bill Murray mulls Oscar prospects as Roosevelt

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Bill Murray mulls Oscar prospects as RooseveltThis Sept. 9, 2012 photo shows Bill Murray, a cast member in the film "Hyde Park on Hudson," poses for a portrait at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival in Toronto. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)(Credit: Chris Pizzello/invision/ap)

TORONTO (AP) — Most stars shun the “O word” — Oscar — when they might be in the running for an Academy Award, not wanting to jinx their chances or look too eager.

Bill Murray has no problem dissecting Hollywood’s highest honors.

A best actor nominee for 2003′s “Lost in Translation,” Murray could have Oscar prospects again as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in “Hyde Park on the Hudson,” a comic drama that played the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.

Murray won a string of key prizes for “Lost in Translation” leading up to the Oscars, including a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit Award and honors from many critics groups.

When he lost on Oscar night, it was a lesson not to get your hopes up too high, Murray said in an interview.

“You can’t get all ramped up and amped up about this thing all the time,” Murray said. “I mean, I got excited about it once, and it was odd. I won all the prizes, I won literally all the prizes all the way up to the last one. And I really thought, well, ‘I’ve just to go get this thing, I’ll be right back.’

“And then I didn’t win, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s odd. How odd is that? I’m feeling so odd now.’ And I came all dressed up and didn’t win. So I’m not going to get all crazy about that.”

Murray is a rare comic actor who has evolved into a performer with the depth to create characters that put him into the awards mix with such films as “Rushmore,” ”Get Low” and “Broken Flowers.”

The former “Saturday Night Live” regular and crazy man of “Ghostbusters,” ”Caddyshack” and “Stripes” first dabbled in heavy drama with a 1984 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge.” Audiences and critics were not kind.

The reaction toughened him up for the inevitable double-takes as people mull the notion: Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt?

After “The Razor’s Edge,” ”I remember a certain famous movie reviewer saying, ‘Bill Murray should not be allowed to do anything but comedy,’ which I reminded him of at the Cannes Film Festival when I was nominated for an Oscar,” Murray said. “Sometimes when you’ve got a biopic and they go, ‘Jerry Lewis will play Albert Einstein’ or something, the first thing is, ‘No, don’t buy it. Not for a second.’”

Murray knows people may have trouble buying him as Roosevelt. But he approached the character with the same thoughts he had when he played writer Hunter S. Thompson in 1980′s “Where the Buffalo Roam.”

The actor already was friends with Thompson, and when it came time to capture the writer on film, Murray aimed to bring out the writer’s brightest qualities.

“I had the feeling of, like, ‘I’ve got to revere the best of this person,’” Murray said. “The same with Roosevelt. I had to revere the best of him.”

Murray is a very credible Roosevelt, capturing the grace, humor, subtle tact and homey wisdom of the president as he plays host to the king and queen of Britain, who have come over to seek American support as World War II approaches.

Directed by Roger Michell (“Notting Hill”), “Hyde Park on the Hudson” is told largely through the eyes of Roosevelt’s spinster cousin (Laura Linney), a confidant of the president. The film opens in U.S. theaters in December.

Murray’s sister had polio, the disease that crippled Roosevelt, so the actor said he had a strong sense of how to play the president’s body language as he struggles on crutches, is pushed about in a wheelchair or is curled like a child in the arms of aides who lift him in and out of cars.

Capturing Roosevelt’s voice was the bigger challenge. Murray worked with a voice coach to break down the unusual mix of vowel sounds in Roosevelt’s speech.

“It’s upstate New York, it’s a little bit of Dutch in it, because he’s Dutch. It almost sounds Scandinavian. They’ve got kind of an ‘oot’ and ‘aboot’ thing, like Minnesota, Wisconsin, in there sometime,” Murray said. “It’s just an inconsistent voice. It jumps around a little bit, so you had to be kind of flexible with it. I just tried to get as much of it in me as I could.”

The intimate film shows Roosevelt in private life, so Murray wasn’t called on for any grand oratory.

Though he was ready for some public speaking of his own at the Oscars for “Lost in Translation,” Murray has a practical attitude about the value of his awards prospects this time: If he’s got Oscar buzz, it will draw audience attention to the film.

“It was OK that I didn’t win, and I don’t have any hard feelings about it. It was like, ‘OK, that was cool, I’m fine. I’m fine with the way my career’s gone. I’m happy with it. It’s gone great.’

“The great thing about the Oscars that’s cool is it means people are going to see your movie. That’s really the deal.”

More David Germain.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations