Bill Murray: Winning an Oscar Can Hurt Your Career

Bill Murray has no intention of catching Oscar fever.

In a recent interview with Variety, Murray said that he will not be campaigning for his new film St Vincent, even if producer Harvey Weinstein wishes he would. “I’m not that way,” Murray said. “If you want an award so much, it’s like a virus. It’s an illness.”

Although Murray has yet to receive an Oscar, he said he “had been infected” with the virus surrounding his 2004 Best Actor nomination for Lost in Translation (Sean Penn’s performance in Mystic River won instead).

But his loss may have turned out for the best.

“People have this post-Oscar blowback,” he said. “They start thinking, ‘I can’t do a movie unless it’s Oscar-worthy.’ It just seems people have difficulty making the right choices after that.”

[Variety]