This was published 6 years ago
'You can't help but be funny sometimes,' Bill Murray says
By Garry Maddox
Bill Murray had a question as he gazed up at the Sydney Opera House.
"Which is the front door?" he said. "Is this the front door or is the front door on the water side?"
The star of Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation was still working out the geography a few hours before his Opera House debut on Friday night.
And it will surprise many fans that one of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic actors and comedians was making his second trip to Sydney - the first was as a tourist in 1980 - as a singer and spoken word performer.
After meeting on a plane, Murray and celebrated German cellist Jan Vogler have teamed up for a quirky show that includes readings from the likes of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Walt Whitman backed by chamber music, as well as songs by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Foster.
"You can't help but be funny sometimes": Bill Murray at the Sydney Opera House. Credit: Nick Moir
"We were boarding an Air Berlin flight from Berlin to Newark," Murray said. "I saw Jan carrying this strange-shaped box and I said, 'Are you going to be able to fit that in the overhead compartment?'.
"He looked at me like I had a head wound or something and said, 'It has its own seat. And not only does it have its own seat in first class, it has the window seat in first class.'
"That's when I thought, 'Ok, I don't know what I'm talking about here with this fella'."
Vogler's Stradivari cello sparked a friendship that turned into a creative partnership after he saw Murray sing Bare Necessities in The Jungle Book.
"I took my kids to the movies and I thought, 'Wow, this is great. We have a lot of elements here'," Vogler said.
They released the album New Worlds last year and have been performing around the world with Chinese violinist Mira Wang - Vogler's wife - and Venezuelan pianist Vanessa Perez.
The famously deadpan Murray said there was comedy even in a show that included solemn literary readings.
Vanessa Perez, Jan Vogler, Bill Murray and Mira Wang before their first performance at the Opera House.Credit: Nick Moir
"You can't help but be funny sometimes," he said. "Even those that are not funny are funny sometimes. But we shape it according to the way the room feels.
"Their playing is so good, too, that it's kind of dazzling. We sort of dazzle them at first then we send our people through to go through their pockets and purses and take things."
Speaking on the Opera House steps, Murray was looking forward to performing at the city's most famous building.
"From this angle, which I've never stood at, it looks like a conquistador's helmet," he said. "You must enjoy getting to wake up to it every day because it's always changing, right?"
Bill Murray, Jan Vogler & Friends is at Sydney Opera House on Friday and Saturday then in Brisbane on November 16 and Melbourne on November 17.