Bill Murray covers this week’s issue of Variety in a black veil. No, he’s not turning into Lorde. He’s promoting St. Vincent, which features him as a curmudgeonly bad influence on everyone. The film stars Melissa McCarthy as a mother who entrusts Murray with her child. Ruh-roh. I’ve been dancing around some Bill Murray stories for weeks now. Murray is my tragicomic idol, and he definitely brought the fun to the Alamoony wedding. I desperately want to drink some tequila with him. Bill loves tequila because it keeps the energy up. Likewise.

Bill’s working it for this indie flick from first-time (feature-film) director Ted Melfi. The story of what it took for this guy to land Murray is nothing less of an epic tale. Everyone knows how Murray doesn’t have an agent or a publicist. He keeps a 1-800 number where people can leave messages. He checks the voicemail sometimes. If he likes what you have to say, he’ll be in touch. As you can imagine, he doesn’t respond very often. Murray is much more likely to crash a random birthday bash or invite himself into a kickball game than to return a voicemail.

TIFF recently threw a Bill Murray Day celebration. They gave him a special crown (see the gallery) for the occasion. He talked to Variety about many things including the unnerving experience of being honored at TIFF. Murray also says that he refuses to campaign for an Oscar for St. Vincent. That’s a strong statement since this film is being distributed by The Weinstein Co. You know how Harvey loves his Oscar campaigns. Let’s throw down with Murray:

On attending Bill Murray Day at TIFF: “The whole thing gets more complicated as it draws closer, and you feel such dread about it. I’m nervous. All I can think is I feel like the Statue of Liberty covered with maggots. I feel like I am going to be assaulted! Why am I doing this?”

His career: “There’s no real plan. I just do what I like. What agents do is try to package you with other people they got. I don’t really require that. If you have an agent, you get a lot of bad scripts. I could probably make better deals. I could probably make more money.”

He won’t campaign for an Oscar, ever again: “I’ve never done that. I know that’s something Harvey (Weinstein) does — he forces you to do these things. I’m not that way. If you want an award so much, it’s like a virus. It’s an illness.”

On losing in 2004 for Lost in Translation: “Six months later, I realized I had taken the virus. I had been infected. People have this post-Oscar blowback. They start thinking, ‘I can’t do a movie unless it’s Oscar-worthy.’ It just seems people have difficulty making the right choices after that.”

Harvey on Bill’s refusal to campaign: “And neither will we, until something happens, like a Golden Globe or a critic’s award. If that happens, he’ll have to get a restraining order against us. We’ll disregard what he told us.”

[From Variety]

Only Bill Murray could call out Harvey Weinstein for his notorious Oscar campaign trails and keep his job. I guess we know who won’t be wearing Marchesa dresses come awards season.

Bill also sat down with Howard Stern last week. I should have covered this earlier, so this will be abbreviated. The hour-long interview is quite entertaining, and you can hear it here. Bill talks about the “emotional” Alimooney wedding, his dislike for Seinfeld, his love of In-N-Out burger, and how the late Roger Ebert used to bust his chops. Here are some other topics:

On fame: “I do not like people that complain about being famous, but I say to people, ‘Hey, you want to be rich and famous? Try being rich, and see if that doesn’t cover most of it for you.’ You have a bunch of dough, you can be as kind as you want, and you can be invisible. No one has to know you have a bunch of dough, and you can behave any way you want. You can be a secret kind of person.”

On not finding the love of his life: “Well… I do think about that. I do think about that. I’m not sure when I’m getting done here. I have kids–I have children that I’m responsible for–and I enjoy that very much, and that wouldn’t have happened without women. I don’t think I’m lonely. It would be nice to go to some of these things and have a date, have someone to bring along. And to go play golf in Scotland, that would be fun. But there’s a lot that I’m not doing that I need to do–something like working on yourself, self-development, and becoming more connected to myself. I don’t have a problem connecting with people, my problem is connecting with myself. And if I’m not really committing myself really well to that, it’s sort of better that I don’t have another person. I can’t take on another relationship if I’m not taking care of the things I need to take care of the most. What stops us from looking at ourselves is that we’re kind of ugly if we look really hard; we’re not who we think we are, and we’re not as wonderful as we think we are.”

[From HowardStern.com]

Bill Murray doesn’t need anyone else to help him be Bill Murray. He’s been married (and divorced) twice. He realizes that he’d rather work on himself than try to shoehorn himself in as part of a couple. That’s admirable. Most people will keep on trying in vain to make it work with someone … anyone. Bill is happiest as a lone wolf. And did he call it on the subject of fame and money, or what?

One more thing: Murray has signed on to sing Christmas carols in a tv special directed by Sofia Coppola. This year, I can say “Murray Christmas” and really mean it.

Photos courtesy of Variety & WENN