Bill Murray doesn’t exactly have a great reputation right now, and to add to the fire, Rob Schneider has shared his own experience with the rather difficult comedian. Appearing on SiriusXM’s Jim Norton & Sam Roberts, the Saturday Night Live alum recalled that Murray — himself a former Not Ready for Prime Time Player — really didn’t jibe with Schneider or castmates like Chris Farley and Adam Sandler.
Initially discussing a project he declined to name, Schneider described a filmmaker warning the crew that “‘Bill Murray is gonna come, he’s gonna change the… dialogue. He’s gonna change things, and it’s gonna be great, but you don’t know who you’re gonna get. Which Bill Murray you’re gonna get. The nice Bill Murray? Or you’re gonna get the tough Bill Murray?’”
“He’s super nice to fans,” Schneider said, before adding, “He wasn’t very nice to us. He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething.”
According to Schneider, Murray particularly disliked Chris Farley, and pondered whether the bad blood stemmed from Farley being “out of control” like Murray’s late friend John Belushi. “I don’t know exactly, but I want to believe that it’s because Chris thought it was cool to be Belushi — who [was] his friend who he saw die — that he thought it was cool to be that out of control. That’s my interpretation, but I don’t really know. I don’t believe it. I only believe it 50%.”
As of late, Murray has been at the center of discussions surrounding inappropriate workplace behavior in recent years. The comedian was supposed to star in Aziz Ansari’s film Being Mortal, but production on the project was halted after he reportedly straddled and kissed a woman while wearing a mask. He ultimately paid the woman a $100,000 settlement. Lucy Liu and Geena Davis have also recalled incidents in which Murray harassed and berated them on set.
It’s worth noting that Schneider’s career is not free of controversy. In 2021, the comedian referred to COVID-19 vaccines as “unapproved experimental gene therapy” and implied that he would invoke the Second Amendment if required to get the shot. Schneider’s also kept up to date on Saturday Night Live in the decades since his time on the show: Back in August, he discussed Kate McKinnon’s 2016 turn as Hillary Clinton in which she sang “Hallelujah” after Donald Trump was elected president, saying that was the moment he knew the show was “over.”
