Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek contemplate Bill Murray’s absence at the Get Low press conference (Photo by Fraser Abe)

Yesterday, we went to the press conference for Get Low, a film about an eccentric man who throws his own funeral while he’s still alive. While there, we learned about another eccentric fellow: Bill Murray. Murray was absent from the conference, but co-stars Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek were there along with the film’s director Aaron Schneider and producer Dean Zanuck (son of legendary producer Richard D. Zanuck of Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy and more).

Now, everyone’s heard of Bill Murray’s social eccentricities (turning up at random house parties, head-butting colleagues, etc.), but Schneider was able to shine some light on the actor’s professional quirks. The director explained that Murray doesn’t read scripts, to which Spacek incredulously interrupted, “He doesn’t read scripts?” The strangeness continued from there. Apparently, Murray only has one agent (which in Hollywood sounds tantamount to eating carbs) and an 1-800 number that people call to leave synopses on voice mail. When he became interested in the Get Low project, Zanuck said he got a call from Murray’s agent saying, “wondering  if the script is still available, please sent it to this P.O. box in upstate New York.” Spacek said to Duvall, perhaps with a tinge of jealousy in her voice, “we make it too easy to get in touch with us.” Duvall then questioned why Murray wasn’t at the press conference. “Where is he right now? He’s somewhere in the city,” to which an unknown voice loudly responded, “he’s out golfing.”

We know Murray’s come a long way, but when we hear the words “Murray”and “golf,” we can only think of his surly groundskeeper in Caddyshack. With the Get Low press conference adding the mountain of evidence, that character may be realer than we think.