Bill Murray Says Not Working With Clint Eastwood Is “One of the Few Regrets I Have”

Bill Murray has his “What if” moments.

The Lost in Translation star recently appeared on The Howard Stern Show and reflected on one gig he wishes he had done. “Have you ever watched a film and said I want to act with this guy so bad?,” Stern asked, to which Murray said, “A long time ago, I was watching the Clint Eastwood movies of the day like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or whatever the hell the movies he was making then, and I thought his sidekick gets killed and he avenges, but the sidekick gets a great part, a great death scene [and] I was like ‘I got to call this guy.’”

Well the actor then did end up calling Eastwood “out of the blue” and Eastwood asked him, “Would you ever want to do another service comedy?” At the time, Murray had just done the war-comedy movie, Stripes.

Although Murray was hesitant because he was afraid of being typecast, and remembered thinking to himself, “Would I become like Abbott and Costello I had to do military movies?” So, he decided to pass on the offer.

But he wishes he didn’t. “It’s one of the few regrets I have is that I didn’t do it because it was a big-scale thing,” the Groundhog Day actor said. “He had access to World War II boats and he could have made a flotilla — and there was some cool stuff in it.”

The film was most likely 1986’s Heartbreak Ridge, which starred Eastwood, who also directed.

Murray also noted that when he sees Eastwood, he’ll still apologize for not doing the movie. But he’s sure the Oscar-winning director is “certainly well over it.”