BILL MURRAY is an actor beloved by millions thanks to a string of iconic film roles and some famously hilarious appearances in real-life.
More importantly, for Irish Post readers, he’s a star with significant family links to the Emerald Isle, which goes some way to explaining his comic timing and general charisma.
One man who definitely isn’t a fan of Murray, however, is his former co-star Richard Dreyfuss.
In fact, the Jaws actor has some considerable beef with the Groundhog Day star which dates back to the time they worked together on the 1991 comedy What About Boy? And an incident that saw Dreyfuss brand Murray an “Irish drunken bully”.
Something of a cult classic, What About Bob? Stars Murray as an obsessive-compulsive and neurotic patient who gatecrashes his therapist’s (Dreyfuss) family holiday with hilarious results.
Now, given that the Irish are famous for handling their drink, we’ll take Dreyfuss’s version of events with a pinch of salt.]
However, it’s worth detailing the incident, which Dreyfuss relayed in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment.
"I didn't talk about it for years,” Dreyfuss said.
“Bill just got drunk at dinner. He was an Irish drunken bully, is what he was. … He came back from dinner [one night] and I said, 'Read this [script tweak], I think it's really funny.' And he put his face next to me, nose-to-nose.
“And he screamed at the top of his lungs, 'Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!' There was no time to react, because he leaned back and he took a modern glass-blown ashtray.
“He threw it at my face from [only a couple feet away]. And it weighed about three quarters of a pound. And he missed me. He tried to hit me. I got up and left."
Murray’s representatives have yet to respond to the claims though they appear out of character with the persona the actor has cultivated on film and in public.