Hollywood is full of fake smiles and "industry friends" who wouldn't recognize each other without a publicist in the room. Then there's Bill Murray and Woody Harrelson. These two are different. They don't just work together; they seem to exist in the same strange, improvised orbit where the lines between a movie script and real life get blurry.
Honestly, if you look at their history, it’s a miracle they’ve only done a handful of projects together. They both have that "I might show up at your house and do your dishes" energy. Bill actually did that once in Scotland, by the way. Woody, on the other hand, is the guy who hasn't been sick in decades and lives on a raw food diet while somehow remaining one of the most chill people on the planet.
When they collide, it’s usually chaos.
The Kingpin Miracle: Three Strikes and a Lot of Improv
If you want to understand the Bill Murray and Woody Harrelson dynamic, you have to start with the 1996 cult classic Kingpin. Most people remember the comb-over. You know the one—Bill Murray’s character, Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken, had a hairstyle that looked like a dying bird was nesting on his head.
But here’s the thing: Bill Murray almost wasn't in the movie.
He initially passed on the role. It took Randy Quaid—who played the Amish bowling prodigy Ishmael—to personally call Bill and talk him into it. Murray finally said yes only two weeks before they started filming. Imagine the stress for the Farrelly brothers. They had a movie about bowling, a massive script, and their villain just showed up at the last minute and decided to throw the script in the trash.
Murray improvised almost every single line in that movie. When he's taunting Woody’s character, Roy Munson, that’s just Bill being Bill.
Did they actually bowl?
This is the part that sounds like a fake Hollywood legend, but it’s 100% true. In the big finale at the National Bowling Center in Reno, Big Ern has to bowl three strikes in a row to win. Usually, a director would use a professional bowler for the close-ups or just edit it together.
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Not Bill.
He stepped up to the lane in front of 1,000 real extras who were getting bored after a long day of shooting. He threw the first strike. The crowd cheered. He threw the second. People started leaning in. Then, he actually nailed the third strike. The reaction you see in the movie—the absolute explosion of noise and Bill’s "I’m above the law" celebration—wasn't acting. It was a genuine "holy crap" moment.
Woody Harrelson, meanwhile, was notoriously terrible at bowling. He had to have coaches just to make his delivery look believable, and most of his shots were done by stand-ins. It’s a perfect metaphor for their relationship: Woody puts in the work, and Bill just wanders in and executes a miracle.
The Zombieland Connection: Woody’s Direct Line to Bill
Fast forward to 2009. Zombieland is being filmed, and the writers have a problem. They need a massive celebrity cameo for the "mansion" scene.
They originally wrote the part for Patrick Swayze. They wanted him to play a zombie version of himself, recreating the pottery scene from Ghost. Sadly, Swayze was too ill to do it. They asked Sylvester Stallone. They asked Jean-Claude Van Damme. They even asked Joe Pesci. Everyone said no.
With only a few days left before they had to shoot, they turned to Woody Harrelson.
"Woody, you got any ideas?"
Woody suggested two names: Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray.
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Hoffman couldn't make it work, but Woody reached out to Bill. Now, Bill Murray doesn't have an agent. He has a 1-800 number that he checks whenever he feels like it. If you want him for a movie, you leave a message and pray. But because it was Woody, Bill actually picked up the phone.
"Garfield, maybe"
The legendary "Garfield" joke in Zombieland wasn't in the original draft. When Bill Murray’s character is dying and gets asked if he has any regrets, he ad-libbed that line. It was a self-deprecating nod to his voice work in the Garfield movies, which he famously claimed he only did because he thought the writer was Joel Coen (of the Coen brothers) when it was actually Joel Cohen.
Woody and Bill spent the whole time on set basically just hanging out. That’s why that scene feels so natural. It’s just two friends in a giant house, one of them pretending to be a zombie to scare the other.
Real Life: Golf, Philosophy, and Raw Food
Beyond the screen, Bill Murray and Woody Harrelson share a lifestyle that’s hard to pin down. They are both frequent flyers in the world of professional-amateur golf. You’ll see them at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, usually wearing something ridiculous.
They also share a certain... skepticism of how Hollywood works.
- Woody is the outspoken environmentalist who lives in a commune-style setup in Hawaii.
- Bill is the guy who wanders into random bachelor parties and gives life advice.
They don't do the traditional press circuit unless they absolutely have to. They don't play the "star" game. There’s a mutual respect there that comes from being two of the only people in the industry who truly don't care about being "industry."
When Zombieland: Double Tap came around in 2019, Bill came back again. It wasn't for the paycheck—it was to "hang again" with Woody and the cast. They filmed a mid-credits scene where Bill is doing a press junket for a fake Garfield 3 movie. Again, most of it was Bill just riffing while Woody watched from the sidelines, probably laughing.
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Why it works (and why we care)
We like seeing these two together because they represent a type of "Old Hollywood" cool that’s disappearing. They aren't curated by a social media team. They are messy, they are weird, and they seem to actually like each other.
In Kingpin, they were rivals. In Zombieland, they were mutual admirers. In real life, they are just two guys who figured out how to be famous without losing their minds.
If you want to see more of this energy, you honestly have to go back and watch the behind-the-scenes footage of Kingpin. Watching Bill Murray entertain 1,000 extras during a technical delay tells you everything you need to know about the guy. He’s a performer who never turns off, and Woody is the perfect audience for him.
How to experience the best of this duo:
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the Murray/Harrelson rabbit hole, don't just stick to the highlight reels. Go find the "making of" documentaries for their collaborations.
- Watch the Kingpin "Extra" features: There is footage of Bill Murray actually bowling those strikes that is more impressive than the movie itself.
- Check out the 1996 interviews: Look for the junket interviews for Kingpin where Woody talks about the pressure of trying to keep up with Bill’s improv.
- Track their Golf Appearances: Their interactions during the Pebble Beach Pro-Am are often caught on fan cameras and show their unscripted chemistry better than any movie script ever could.
The reality is that we might not get many more pairings of these two. They’re both getting older, and they’re both pickier than ever about what they do. But the work they’ve already put out—especially that miraculous run in Reno—is more than enough to cement them as one of the best "non-duo" duos in cinema history.