Which iconic role does Oscar winner Bill Murray regret turning down? Explained

Bill Murray is an actor who has been active for more than five decades. He is mostly known for his comedic performances in films like Ghost Busters, Meatballs, Groundhog Day, and others. He has also acted in dramatic films like Lost in Translation.

However, there is one film that this Academy Award-winning actor regrets turning down. It was the 1986 Heartbreak Ridge which was helmed by and also starred Clint Eastwood. Despite having a liking for Eastwood's films around that time, Murray ended up turning down the offer. So let us find out why exactly he did it, which turned out to be a regret of his professional life.

Bill Murray turned down a Clint Eastwood film

Bill Murray recently appeared on the Howard Stern Show where he was asked if he ever saw a film and wanted to work with the actors in it. In response, the Ghost Busters actor said:

"A long time ago I was watching the Clint Eastwood movies of the day, like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or whatever the movies he was making then, and I thought: ‘His sidekick gets killed, and he avenges, but the sidekick gets like a great part, a great death scene."

He added:

“I was like, I got to call this guy. So I called him out of the blue, and he said, ‘Would you ever want to do another service comedy?’ Because I just made Stripes and he had this great idea for an enormous Navy thing and when he said, ‘Would you ever want to do another service comedy,’ like jeez, ‘Would I become like Abbott and Costello?’ I had to do like military movies? And I said, ‘Well, God, I guess maybe I shouldn’t.'”

As per Deadline, the film Bill Murray was referring to was possibly the 1986 comedy-drama flick Heartbreak Ridge which Eastwood directed and starred in. Murray called it one of the few regrets of his career. He said,

"But it’s one of the few regrets I have is that I didn’t do it. Because it was a big-scale thing, and I would have gotten a great – I don’t know if I’d have gotten a great death scene, it was more of a comedy that one – but it was great,” he said. “He had access to World War II boats and he could have like made a flotilla and stuff, and there was some cool stuff in it.”

Bill Murray revealed that he has even apologized to Eastwood for turning it down.