Just as we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Harold Ramis’ cult film Groundhog Day, the film’s producer once again speaks of a far from serene work.
Those who do our job would have become filthy rich if, every time a performer or a director during an interview spoke to him about an idyllic set, he had received a euro. By now it’s almost a cliché, but it’s not said that the best films always arise from calm situations in which everyone gets along in love and gets along. What we tell you, however, we particularly regret, because it shows us that the grumpy and cynical Bill Murray in I’m starting over, the cult of Harold Ramis whose thirtieth anniversary this year, he didn’t behave on set much differently from his character. Him and Ramis, recalls the producer Trevor Albert, made filming the film anything but pleasant. Let’s see what was the main reason for friction.
Trevor Albert on the atmosphere on the set of Groundhog Day
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the producer Trevor Albert recounted that, at least during the filming of I’m starting over, Bill Murray he was going through, let’s say, a difficult moment, which heavily influenced the spirit of the work. This in spite of Harold Ramis had directed him in Golf ball e Ghostbusters without problems. On the set of Groundhog DayHowever, things turned out differently: “It was a tense shoot for various reasons. It was unfortunate and probably made the film less fun to make. But you can still make a great film even when people aren’t in perfect harmony”. The problems between Murray and Ramis began when they both collaborated on the script. At one point Ramis sent to work instead of him with Murray the original author, Danny Rubin, because he was tired of receiving phone calls from the actor at 2 in the morning and not finding him when he looked for him, because he purposely made himself untraceable. The director himself told the story of their disagreements to the New Yorker in 2004, when, after the film, he and Bill Murray no longer spoke: “What I would like to tell him is exactly what we tell our children. You don’t have to throw a tantrum to get what you want. Just say it.” For his part Danny Rubin, in the same magazine, said that the reason for the dispute between the two was mainly the disagreement on the approach to the subject of the film. Murray “wanted it to be more philosophical and Harold kept reminding him it was a comedy.” Fortunately for them, a few months before the death of Harold Ramis in 2014, he and Murray made up. And the fact remains that, however difficult the filming was, I’m starting over remains one of the best comedies ever made.
