Bill Murray with his favorite Irish co-star Saoirse Ronan of "City of Ember"
Bill Murray is making the media rounds promoting the new animation film “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and last week he made his way to Ireland.
The famous Irish-American actor is the voice of Badger in the movie adaptation of the Roald Dahl story, in which George Clooney and Meryl Streep also lend their voices. The film marks Murray’s fifth collaboration with “The Royal Tenenbaums” director Wes Anderson.
Murray falls perfectly into place with the all-star lineup, but he revealed to Ireland’s Evening Herald how low key he is about the idea of “celebrity.”
The actor showed up to the interview alone – no publicists, no assistants, no agents.
"I like to travel by myself,” he said. “Having to travel with others makes me nervous. I like to think I'm self-sufficient and who really needs to have all those kinds of people around anyway? They just irritate everyone."
Murray claims he doesn’t care about being famous, adding: "In real life, no one gives a shit about celebrity; it's like a crow on a wall – kind of interesting to look at for a minute, then you rightly drive right by."
He is, however, disappointed that the Irish have yet to “claim” him as one of their own stars.
Murray, along with his three brothers and two sisters, grew up in an Irish Catholic family in Chicago. The actor’s paternal grandfather emigrated from County Cork, while his mother’s side comes from County Galway.
"But no one has ever claimed me in Ireland. No one!” Murray said, and proceeded to give a shout out to young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan.
“I worked in Belfast with Saoirse Ronan on ‘City of Ember’ last year and she teased viciously about the Cork Murrays,” he said. “What a doll she is."