Bill Murray on Playing FDR: “Playing a beloved person, that really sets a high bar for your behavior and your acting and what you project”

I got to see Hyde Park on Hudson at the New York Film Festival, and while it’s far from a perfect movie (though it is, in my opinion, a very good one), Bill Murray‘s performance as Franklin Delano Roosevelt is among the best roles he has ever done. 

Murray spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the challenge of playing the 32nd President of the United States and whether he hopes the role will bring him an Oscar. 

According to Murray, one of the main challenges with playing such a revered figure is the fact that he is playing a revered figure.  He explains, “It’s hard to play beloved, you know? It’s much harder to play beloved than to play a rotten guy … so playing a beloved person, that really sets a high bar for your behavior and your acting and what you project.  Because of that love, you don’t sorta want to disappoint that love. Because love can be eternal, so you have to respect that. It’s still out there. It’s still moving around. And you have to not do anything to deny that. You have to protect love — anyways, I sound like I should write this down — but you have to protect it. So you have to work your very hardest not to break that vibration. That feeling. That feeling is working for you and you have to maintain it, and you have to ride it and enhance it as well.” Read more

“You can’t get all ramped up and amped up about this thing,” Bill Murray said on talk of getting an Oscar Nomination for ‘Hyde Park on the Hudson’

Bill Murray isn’t likely to be the first actor that pops into your head when you think of someone to play beloved President Franklin Delano Roosevelt but the comedian is already earning Oscar talk about his portrayal in Hyde Park on the Hudson.

“You can’t get all ramped up and amped up about this thing all the time,” Murray said to The Huffington Post.  “I mean, I got excited about it once [for his Oscar nomination for Lost in Translation], and it was odd.  I won all the prizes, I won literally all the prizes all the way up to the last one.  And I really thought, well, ‘I’ve just to go get this thing, I’ll be right back.’  And then I didn’t win, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s odd.  How odd is that?  I’m feeling so odd right now.’  And I came all dressed up and didn’t win.  So I’m not going to get all crazy about that.”

Murray has tried to move on from the disappointment.  “It was OK that I didn’t win, and I don’t have any hard feelings about it,” he said.  “It was like, ‘OK, that was cool, I’m fine.  I’m fine with the way my career’s gone.  I’m happy with it.  It’s gone great.’  The great thing about the Oscars that’s cool is that it means people are going to see your movie.  That’s really the deal.” Read more

Trailer: ‘Hyde Park on the Hudson’ Starring Bill Murray & Laura Linney

Hyde Park on the Hudson: The story of the love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley, centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.