Bill Murray is doing a Christmas special with Sofia Coppola, though to hear him talk about it with Ellen DeGeneres on Wednesday’s show, he’s become reluctant about the whole thing.
In his classic deadpan style, Murray proved he wasn’t going to make it easy for DeGeneres to get any information out of him. When she asked him if the special was happening, he said, “Well, I guess you said it on TV — that’s not helping me.”
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He did finally explain their approach to the special, which they intend to film in a club in New York. “Christmas is really about Christmas songs so I thought I’d sort of do something like that,” he said. “That was sort of Sofia’s idea. And I started thinking about Christmas songs and I thought you can do some different things with it and sort tell a little bit of a story.”
There is no network involvement at this point. “It was just sort of something we wanted to do,” Murray explained. “Now there’s people that want to help. I guess I’ll do it.”
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Murray worked with director Sofia Coppola on the 2003 film “Lost in Translation.” This holiday special will be their first collaboration since that project, earning both Oscar nominations, and Coppola a win for Best Original Screenplay.
Details are sparse on the special at this time, but Murray is expected to sing. He can be heard singing in his latest film project, “St. Vincent,” which costars Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd and Naomi Watts. Written and directed by Theodore Melfi, The Weinstein Company will release the film in wide release on Friday, Oct. 24.
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” airs weekdays in syndication nationwide.
