Bill Murray Was ‘Such A Creep’ to an Extra on ‘Kingpin’
“Give me something on Kingpin,” Drew Barrymore prodded guest Bill Murray. “It’s a favorite film of mine.” Specifically, Barrymore was digging for dirt about “a favorite moment,” a scene in which Murray’s Ernie McCracken and Woody Harrelson’s Roy Munson share a meal in a diner.
The scene features an improvised button at the end in which Harrelson leaves the cafe and Murray nods a flirty “Hi” to a woman in another booth. The woman smiles and returns his hello but he shakes his head. “Not you,” he says to the woman, focusing his seductive gaze on her younger companion. “Hi.”
“It was horrible, it was really horrible,” Murray confessed about the bit that he “just made up in the moment.”
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After he made the joke, there was a long silence before one of the Farrelly brothers called cut. As soon as the camera stopped rolling, Murray went into full apology mode to a woman who was “just a day player,” but one with visibly hurt feelings. “I said, ‘I'm sorry! That was the character!’ I mean honestly, I’m playing the most horrible person in the world.”
But despite Murray’s apologies, “she was just mortified that I was such a creep.”
Not all of the comedian’s Kingpin memories resulted in hurt feelings. The film was shot in Pennsylvania near a town called Moon. Tickled by the name, Murray made the pilgrimage to the neighboring village, visiting the high school gift shop to purchase a sweatshirt that said “MARS.” He also scored a Mars tote bag from the school’s basketball team.
He also shared a happier memory about Kingpin, telling Barrymore that he needed no stunt double when it came time to film his bowling scenes. “It’s probably common knowledge, but every ball I rolled on screen was a strike,” he boasted. “Every one.”
“When we got to the final part and Bill had to get three strikes in a row, I figured it could take 10 to 15 rolls,” admitted Bobby Farrelly in a Fast Company oral history of the film. “I explained the situation to the audience: ‘It’s the last frame, he needs a turkey here. And so on the first one, you guys clap big, and then the second one, you clap bigger, and on the third one, you explode because he needs all three.’ Of course, Bill gets up there, first one, strike. Everybody goes nuts. Second one, strike, the place goes crazy. Third one, strike. Three in a row. They were really blown away. Like, Bill just threw three strikes in a row when he had to and they erupted. It was not fake at all.”
Barrymore was impressed. “Seriously, are you a good bowler?”
Murray admitted his skills aren’t what they used to be. “I used to be able to just go into a trance and do it,” he said. “But I don’t think I can do that so much anymore.”
