Bill Murray Vows He Won’t Catch Oscar ‘Virus’

Weinstein Company(NEW YORK) — Bill Murray’s performance in the upcoming movie St. Vincent is being called Oscar-worthy, but in a new interview with Variety, Murray reveals that unlike other awards-season hopefuls, he won’t be campaigning for the coveted trophy.

“I’ve never done that,” he tells the magazine. “I know that’s something Harvey [Weinstein, head of The Weinstein Company, the studio backing the film] does — he forces you to do these things. I’m not that way. If you want an award so much, it’s like a virus. It’s an illness.”

The 64-year-old actor, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Lost in Translation back in 2004, admits he convinced himself that he would win.  He didn’t.

“Six months later, I realized I had taken the virus. I had been infected,” he confesses.

Murray notes that winning the Oscar has been a curse for some of his Hollywood peers. “People have this post-Oscar blowback,” he explains. “They start thinking, ‘I can’t do a movie unless it’s Oscar-worthy.’ It just seems people have difficulty making the right choices after that.”

Weinstein tells Billboard he thinks it’s too early to discuss St. Vincent’s Oscar odds, “until something happens, like a Golden Globe or a critic’s award.”

If that happens, Weinstein adds, Murray will “have to get a restraining order against us. We’ll disregard what he told us.”

St. Vincent stars Murray as a crabby neighbor who develops an unlikely friendship with the son of a recent divorcee, played by Melissa McCarthy. Naomi Watts also stars.

St. Vincent is now out in limited release. It opens nationwide Oct. 24.

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