It’s no secret that, throughout Bill Murray’s 30+ year career, I’ve always held a candle for the guy. The man is pure tragicomic excellence personified and one hell of a deadpan urban legend to boot. I adore that he hangs courtside with Spike Lee, dig him whether or not he rarely wears underwear, and, of course, nod appreciatively towards his big Twinkie. Murray’s awesomeness knows no conceivable bounds, especially after noting that the New Yorker caricature of Murray, to him, is way “more significant” than an Academy Award. Dude has no publicist and no agent, and he doesn’t concern himself over whether he’ll receive scripts: “Ehhhhh. If they want me, they’ll find me.” Murray appreciates where he is and who got him there, and you’ll never find him refusing to sign an autograph or declining to engage in philosophical conversation with the random barfly. So, it seems rather significant to learn that Bill Murray was driven to act less than professional on a film set run by one particular director:

Terminator Salvation got a slug of unwanted publicity when the now infamous Christian Bale flame-out hit the internet. McG declines to comment any further than he already has, but points out that movie sound stages can be stressful places where creative battles sometimes become heated. Particularly, it seems, on his sound-stages. “I’m reintroducing the fist-fight to movie sets,” he smiles. “I don’t think there’s been a film I’ve made where there hasn’t been some kind of physical fight. I mean, I’ve been headbutted by an A-list star. Square in the head. An inch later and my nose would have been obliterated.” Will he be revealing any names? “Nah, I probably shouldn’t,” he smiles. “But it was Bill Murray. Y’know, it’s a passionate industry.”

Uh… I find it rather alarming that, as a director, McG isn’t at all disturbed by the fact that verbal and physical fights are not merely a regular but a requisite occurrence on every single one of his films. Hell, the mere fact that Bill Fucking Murray, the extremely laid-back and seen-it-all veteran actor, was provoked to violence by McG himself, well, that ought to tell us something. If nothing else, it tells us that perhaps Christian Bale really wasn’t out of line when he lost his temper in that infamous rant.

As y’all may have noticed, I’ve developed a sort of like-hate thing in regards to Christian Bale and, mostly, it’s that damn overbearing ego that has resulted in his conflicted status. I mean, even though he’s sort of a prick, I’d still allow him to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, that is, as long as he kept his fucking mouth shut afterward. However, Bill Murray has not only made headbutting acceptable, but he’s also unwittingly absolved Christian Bale in the slightest of regards. Stranger things have happened, no?