Bill Murray’s First Rehearsal For Life Aquatic Wasn’t What Wes Anderson Expected

Anderson and his leading man seem to have become so copacetic that little direction is needed. If Murray reads an Anderson script, he essentially knows what is being asked of him. It also helped that Anderson floated the idea of “The Life Aquatic” to Murray back in 1998 when the two were making “Rushmore” together. Murray and Anderson would also make “The Royal Tenenbaums” together in the interim. By their third project, the pattern was already set. Murray said: 

“At this point he doesn’t say much. He told me about this thing years ago, when we were making ‘Rushmore.’ He doesn’t tell me much about it at all. I have a lot of faith in him. We’ve become friends, and I don’t need a lot of explanation for things. If I feel I need something at this point, I ask.”

Thanks to his mysterious 1-800 number — perhaps the ultimate vetting process — Murray most often hears from filmmakers he’s already worked with or who are friends. There’s a reason he’ll always show up for Anderson movies or star in the films of Jim Jarmusch. 

The rehearsal for “The Life Aquatic” went, in true Andersonian fashion, thusly glib: 

“[W]e went out on a boat. I said, ‘I want to rehearse.’ And he said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, just tell me the story.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, God.’ So he just read me the script, right on the boat. And I just sat there, sunbathing on a speedboat, and he read the script to me. It was kind of like a fairytale, like a night-night bedtime story. We didn’t even finish the script, but after we got [off], I thought, ‘Well, that’s enough.'”

Read it to me, and we’re ready to go.