He may need some glasses! Bill Murray revealed during a surprise AMA Reddit this month that he accepted the voiceover lead in 2004's animated film Garfield under false pretenses. The usually private actor revealed in the very forthcoming Q&A that he only joined the project because he mistook the writer Joel Cohen with none other than the Coen brothers.
"I had a hilarious experience with Garfield. I only read a few pages of it, and I kind of wanted to do a cartoon movie, because I had looked at the screenplay and it said 'Joel Cohen' on it," Murray, 63, said on Jan. 17. "And I wasn't thinking clearly, but it was spelled Cohen, not Coen. I love the Coen brothers movies. I think that Joel Coen is a wonderful comedic mind. So I didn't really bother to finish the script, I thought 'he's great, I'll do it.'"
Indeed, the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have created a beloved catalog of acclaimed, quirky films over the years. The Oscar winners have directed such classics as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Though?, No Country for Old Men and the 2014 Golden Globe nominated film Inside Llewyn Davis. But, as Murray soon found out, that's not who he would be working with.
Murray added that the Garfield script required massive tweaks and, once he signed on, he sought out a meeting with "the misspelled Joel Cohen" about some changes. The pair teamed up again in Garfield 2 in 2006, but never went for a third. Murray also objected to the wardrobe items selected for his costar, Jennifer Love Hewitt.
"…They sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one," Murray admitted. "The girl, Jennifer Love Hewitt, she was sweet. In the second movie they dressed her like a homeless person. You knew it wasn't gonna go well."