Bill Murray finally calls — too late

At 12:39pm on Wednesday, a couple of hours after my giant story about Bill Murray not calling me is published, the phone rings.

It’s Bill Murray. He is in New York on the way to the airport.

I tell him I’ve been trying to reach him for weeks. That I had given up. He tells me he had heard that but he didn’t know what to say. He finally dialled my cell after nudging from former Saturday Night Live writer Jim Downey, a close friend of his.

“I didn’t know what to make of it,” Murray says. “And I only called because these other people spoke so highly of you.” I mention that the story is actually done.

“I didn’t read the article,” he says. “I don’t even know where the article is or when it came out. I was calling you on the chance you hadn’t written it because they all said I would enjoy the experience of speaking with you.”

We talk about the Chicago Cubs and musician John Prine. Murray tried to get the Kennedy Centre to bring in Prine for Sunday’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humour ceremony. It didn’t work out.

It is clear that Murray is truly conflicted about receiving this honour. But he’s going through with it. Letterman, Ivan Reitman, Jane Curtin, Emma Stone — they’ll all be there to fete him.

“I really thought if I don’t answer the phone for awhile, maybe they’ll just move on to someone else,” says Murray.

My story — which I worked on for months, and included more than a dozen attempts to interview him — was published a few hours earlier. I tell him it was a struggle to profile somebody without talking to him, but I felt as if the piece worked.

“I did fear you would call at the last minute and then I’d have to rewrite the whole damn thing,” I say.

“And then I did,” says Murray. “Sorry.” “No,” I tell him. “It’s published. I can’t go back on it.”