›› TALKiNG PiCTURES
The patience of a saint Director Theodore Melfi talks tracking down Bill Murray for ‘St. Vincent’ by David Te mp l e ton
A dance session with Bill Murray merits the title of sainthood if you ask us.
T
heodore Melfi is a born storyteller. That’s what’s made him a successful director of television commercials (for MTV and a gazillion other advertisers), what guided him through his role on the production-end of a dozen ultra-independent films (Winding Roads, MorphMan, Game of Life), and what makes his directorial effort—the new Bill Murray comedydrama St. Vincent—so much loopy, scruffy and shaggy-doggy fun to watch. Of course, being a born storyteller also helps Melfi when he just, you know, tells a story. “St. Vincent is based on a couple of true stories,” he informs a standing-room-only audience before a sold-out screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival, “and one of those stories—my daughter Taylor—is actually here tonight.” Melfi, whose dry, intelligent sense of humor is somewhat reminiscent of, well, of Bill Murray, gently gestures to his daughter, who stands up, shoots him one of those “ohmy-god-dad-really?” expressions, and then drinks in the applause of the audience. “Eight years ago, my brother died,” Melfi says. “He was Taylor’s dad, and it was a big shock to our family. Her mother wasn’t in the picture, so my wife and I adopted her and moved her from Tennessee to Sherman Oaks, California. We eventually put her in Catholic School, and in her sophomore year she gets this homework assignment in her World Religion class, to identify someone in real life who matches the qualities of a saint.” OK. So far, so good. Our storyteller has
hooked us with a masterful opening line, drawn us further in with a few tantalizing tidbits artfully blended with a couple of genuine surprises, and now, with this new morsel about the homework project, he’s letting us think we can see where his story is going. We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t read the blurb in the film festival program, so of course we know that St. Vincent is about a hard-drinking, gambling-addicted, curmudgeonly scruff-ball (Murray) who ends up becoming the paid babysitter and, um, “life-coach” to a lonely, likably odd, bullied little boy named Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), the only Jewish kid at a Catholic elementary school. And we know that, in the film, Oliver is also asked to select someone as a real-life saint. “In my case, my daughter picked me,” Melfi continues. “And she started working on the project, and I immediately thought, ‘Well OK, this is a story that has to be told— though in the movie, Taylor wouldn’t pick someone like me, she’d pick someone like a drunken Bill Murray, and instead of it being Taylor, it would be a little boy.” For the character of Vincent, Melfi incorporated the other “true story” he’d referenced—that of his wife’s real-life father, who Melfi admits was “not a really good guy.” A hard-drinking Vietnam vet, he abandoned her when she was 9, but eventually reentered her life 25 years later when she tracked him down after a seminar she took about controlling the story of your own life. They became the best of friends, and stayed that
way for the rest of his life. “It was obvious,” Melfi tells the crowd, “that my wife’s dad would be the model for that Bill Murray-like character in my movie, and that the only person I would want to play him ... was Bill Murray. So now, I had to actually find a way to get Bill Murray into my movie.” Here is where Melfi’s story gets a little shaggy. “I think everyone knows by now that Bill Murray doesn’t have an agent or a manager. He has a 1-800 number. That’s not a joke. You call this number, and it’s not even his voice. There’s this other voice. Anyway, you leave a message, and if he calls you back, he calls you back. I left dozens and dozens of messages.” Through an acquaintance, Melfi eventually tracked down the number of Bill Murray’s lawyer. “So I called him up and asked how I can get a script to Bill Murray,” Melfi says. “And the lawyer said, ‘How have you been trying to reach him?’ and I mentioned the 800 number, and the lawyer said, ‘Well, that’s what I have.’ “He actually told me he’d just been talking to Bill’s accountant, who couldn’t find Bill to sign his tax forms. So ... I just kept leaving messages on the 800 line, and eventually, Bill called his attorney and said, ‘This Melfi guy keeps leaving me messages. Tell him to write a one-page letter and snail mail it to me.’” He sent the letter. A few weeks later, the lawyer called Melfi, said Murray thought the letter was “swell,” and gave another address to send the script to. A few weeks after that, Melfi was in his car on his way to a commercial shoot in Los Angeles. “I didn’t believe it was Bill Murray at first,” Melfi admits, not laughing at the memory. “He had to convince me. He eventually said, ‘I read your script, and I think it’s pretty good. Would you like to get together for a coffee ... tomorrow morning?’ But I was shooting tomorrow morning, so I suggested maybe in the evening, and he said, ‘OK. Tomorrow evening. In New York.’ “I explained that I couldn’t get to New York by the evening, not after working all day in Los Angeles, so he says, ‘Well, how about Friday?’ I said, ‘Sure, I can be in New York on Friday,’ and he says, ‘No no ... In Cannes. In France. It’s going to be a good time.’” Murray finally gave up, muttered a few words about maybe calling again in a couple of weeks, and abruptly hung up. Melfi was
sure that his life—certainly his dream of making the film with Bill Murray—had probably just ended. His friends and family suggested it was time to move to his backup plan. “But Bill Murray was my only plan!” he says. “Two more weeks later, on Memorial Day weekend, I’ve thrown my back out. I’m in terrible pain, and I get a text, at 8am. ‘Ted. It’s Bill. Can you meet me in one hour at LAX? I’ll be in the baggage claim area.’ So, I take two Vicodin, grab the cane my kids gave me because they thought I’d look funny walking with a cane ... and I head to LAX— and there’s Bill Murray. The first thing he says to me is, ‘What happened to your back?’ I told him I’d thrown it out, and he said, ‘Well ... you have to stretch.’” Murray suggested they discuss the script while taking a drive. “We get in this town car waiting at the curb,” Melfi says, maintaining a steady where-is-this-story-going-anyway cadence, “and first thing, we stop and get four In-NOut burgers, which was weird for me since I’m a vegetarian—I got a couple of grilled cheeses, which Bill liked better than his burgers—and then we drive ... for three hours. I have no idea where we’re going. At one point I look up and see that we’ve just passed the Pechanga Indian Reservation. Which is like, Mexico, almost.” Eventually, after arriving at a remote ranch house Murray owns in the desert, having gone over the script line by line, Murray offering a number of sharp observations and useful suggestions—the Vicodin long ago having worn off—Murray said the words Melfi had been waiting for. “He said, ‘OK. You seem good. You want to make the movie with me? I think we should make the movie.’ And I said, ‘Wonderful, but would you please do me a favor? Would you please tell someone else that this actually happened, because I’m afraid no one’s going to believe me.’” The town car took Melfi home, leaving Bill Murray alone in the desert. Melfi says it took another whole year to raise the money, secure a distributor and put everything together to make St. Vincent a reality. “Of course,” Melfi says, a laugh lurking somewhere unseen behind his straight face, “now that I was ready, I had to actually make the movie. I had to make a movie ... with Bill Murray. “But that’s another story.” Y Ask David who his real-life saint is at talkpix@earthlink.net.
NOVEMBER 7 - NOVEMBER 13, 2014 PACIFIC SUN 15