- Geena Davis alleges that Murray harassed her while they made the 1990 movie "Quick Change."
- In one incident, she said he sexually harassed her, and in another, she said he shouted and swore at her.
Geena Davis is giving new details about abuse she alleges she suffered from Bill Murray while they made the 1990 movie "Quick Change."
Davis was asked about working with Murray on the movie during an episode of the "On With Kara Swisher" podcast. She previously said in her memoir "Dying of Politeness" that Murray harassed her.
"I went to meet with Bill Murray and his co-director and a producer in a hotel suite," Davis said on the podcast (at the 23:22 mark), about a meeting before shooting began. "And I came in and went to sit down with everybody sitting there. But Bill Murray popped up and said, 'Hey, have you ever tried the Thumper?' And I'm like, 'What? No. What's that?' 'Well come try it.' 'No, no, no.'"
The Thumper was a personal massage device.
She said Murray then told her, "Lay down here. I wanna try it on you."
"I'm like, 'No, no, no, thank you.' And he keeps at it," Davis said. "And I keep saying 'No' to the point where I would've had to scream at him, 'Stop fucking asking me! I am not doing it. Do you understand?' Which I was far too timid to do. So I perched on the corner of the bed and let him do it, and he did it for like one second, and then didn't ask how I liked it or anything. So I realized it was just to see if he could force me to do something inappropriate."
In her memoir, Davis clarified that she let Murray use the device on her back "for a total of about two seconds."
But Davis said the harassment didn't end there. At another point during filming, the Oscar winner said that Murray blew up at her.
"We were shooting a huge scene out on an intersection in Manhattan with hundreds of extras and a giant crew and all that stuff," Davis said. "And they said, 'We're ready for you to come to set.' And I said, 'Well, costumes asked me to wait here one second. Can I do that, or should I come with you?'"
"Seconds later, Bill Murray — in a full clown costume, by the way — slams into the trailer with rage coming out of his eyeballs and starts screaming at me and swearing at me, 'Get the fuck out there! What the fuck are you doing? Move! Move!'" Davis said.
"And he got behind me and screamed in my ear, 'Move! Move faster! Move it!' And we're getting to this intersection where there's hundreds of people watching this, and he keeps it up and keeps it up until he says, 'Stand there' and points to a mark on the pavement and starts shooting," she continued.
Davis said she was "literally shaking" from the experience. Afterward, she said, Murray acted as if nothing happened.
A representative for Murray didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
"Talking about it actually, it's still — it's very emotional for me," Davis said on the podcast as she fought back tears. "Because I felt so ashamed, you know, for somebody who wants to do things right. You know?"
While speaking to the British outlet i in October, Davis recalled an "awful" TV interview on "The Arsenio Hall Show" with Murray to promote "Quick Change."
A clip from the interview showed Murray stroking Davis' arms and, at one point, pulling down her dress strap as she talked to Hall about her audition process.
"He touched you a lot in the audition?" Hall asked Davis during the interview, referring to Murray.
"Yeah, I swear. The first thing he did was take my shirt out of my pants and start tickling my stomach," she responded, smiling as the audience laughed.
Davis told the outlet that although she laughed off the incident at the time, it was ultimately "devastating."
"I forgot that. Telling it that way, just as a humorous anecdote, I must have thought, 'Well, it's ultimately funny, or makes a good story,' when in fact it was so devastating," Davis said.
Also in October, Seth Green recalled a tense experience with Murray when he was 9 during a guest appearance on "Saturday Night Live." Green said Murray dropped him into a trash can because he wouldn't move from his seat on a couch, but was later comforted by "SNL" stars Eddie Murphy and Tim Kazurinsky.