Bill Murray looks to get back in the game

‘He had a real gung-ho attitude’
Murray is famously difficult to get in touch with for a film. He doesn’t have an agent or a publicist and in the past, filmmakers have had to leave a message on a voice mail, which Murray checked infrequently. He has joked that entire careers have been launched on the parts he’s turned down.

“City of Ember” director Gil Kenan (“Monster House”) said getting the script to Murray “was not an easy prospect.”

“There are so many stories out there, most of them horror stories, about getting (Murray) to work on films or of his on-set demeanor, but I have to say ... he had a real gung-ho attitude,” said Kenan.

What drew Murray to the script when he received it was its writer, Caroline Thompson, who adapted Jeane Duprau’s book. Murray met Thompson (“Edward Scissorhands”) years ago and says “she works on a higher level than the rest.”

“From my perspective, he’s in a place where he’s more open to things than he may have been in the past,” said Kenan. “There’s a lot in him. We’ve seen aspects of that on the screen now that he’s had a career, but I actually feel like there’s a lot more there that hasn’t been seen.”

‘I want to bounce off like a pinball’
Two years ago, Murray said he had taken to Jay-Z’s idea of “retirement,” meaning people might generally consider him out of the game but he could nevertheless continue to work here and there.

After the divorce, though, he’s rallying to dedicate himself more fully.

“I’ve just come out of a sort of doldrums and I feel like I want to go,” he said. “I want to work. I want to get going. I want to do a few things at once. I really want to connect with other people that are going that way and ‘Let’s go’... I want to bounce off like a pinball. Like a pinball, I want to bounce off bumpers that are positive. I want to bounce off people that are positive and hope that’ll make me more positive and give me momentum.”

Earlier this year, Murray shot his third film with Jim Jarmusch, a thriller filmed in Spain titled “The Limits of Control.” He also worked again with Wes Anderson (“Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”) doing a voice for the animated “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

His “City of Ember” co-star Robbins, who directed Murray in his 1999 film “Cradle Will Rock,” recently asked him to be in his latest directorial effort. Said Murray: “I’ll throw in.”

The writers of “The Office” have been hired to pen a “Ghostbusters III,” which Murray thinks could offer a fresh take on the films, the second of which he (and many others) found disappointing.

“If I could get through this in a powerful way, I feel that I have even more potential to do something,” said Murray. “I think I’d be working on a higher level. It’d be great to achieve, to do the art that I thought I was always capable of — something that really, really affects people and grabs them and makes them feel and become alive.”

“I’ve tried to lighten it for people. I know how hard it is,” said Murray. “There’s a lot of goodwill out there for what I’ve done. And I didn’t really appreciate it so much before. I really appreciate it now.”

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