Aziz Ansari hopes to finish movie suspended over Bill Murray misconduct allegations – UK Times

Aziz Ansari has said he still hopes to complete Being Mortal, the film that was suspended in 2022 after allegations of inappropriate conduct were made against its star, Bill Murray.

The film would have been Ansari’s feature directorial debut. After production was halted, he moved on to work on Good Fortune, which stars Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer and was released this week.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Ansari said he still hasn’t given up hope of returning to the earlier project.

“At some point, it’d be great to finish it,” said the Parks and Recreation star. “I have some of the stuff edited. There’s so much stuff in it that we’re all really proud of.”

After adding that he’ll have to “wait and see” as he has various projects he’s developing, Ansari concluded: “I’m not sure what I’m gonna do next. But I would love to finish that. The project is something that means a lot to all of us, and it definitely comes up. Maybe there’s a world where we’ll finish it at some point.”

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The film was set to be an adaptation on the 2014 non-fiction book Being Mortal: Medicine & What Matters in The End, written by practicing surgeon Atul Gawande.

During production in 2022, a female crew member filed a complaint against Murray, accusing him of straddling and kissing her through a mask.

At the time, the Lost In Translation star described the incident as a “difference in opinion,” saying that he had done “something I thought was funny and it wasn’t taken that way.”

It was reported that the actor eventually entered mediation with the woman and ended up paying a settlement of just over $100,000.

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Earlier this year, Murray weighed in on the allegations in an interview with the New York Times,

“I tried to make peace. I thought I was trying to make peace. I ended up being, to my mind, barbecued,” the Groundhog Day actor said of the backlash he faced.

“But someone that I worked with, that I had had lunch with on various days of the week — it was Covid, we were all wearing masks, and we were all stranded in this one room listening to this crazy scene. I dunno what prompted me to do it,” he continued.

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“It’s something that I had done to someone else before, and I thought it was funny, and every time it happened, it was funny. I was wearing a mask, and I gave her a kiss, and she was wearing a mask. It wasn’t like I touched her, but it was just, I gave her a kiss through a mask. And she wasn’t a stranger,” Murray added.

“It still bothers me,” he continued, “because that movie was stopped by the human rights or ‘H & R’ of the Disney corporation, which is probably a little bit more strident than some other countries’. It turned out there were pre-existing conditions and all this kind of stuff. I’m like, what? How was anyone supposed to know anything like that? There was no conversation, there was nothing. There was no peacemaking, nothing. It went to this lunatic arbitration, which, if anyone ever suggests you go to arbitration: Don’t do it. Never ever do it. Because you think it’s justice, and it isn’t.”

Of whether he feels he learned something from the experience, the Caddyshack actor replied: “I think so. You can teach an old dog new tricks. But it was a great disappointment, because I thought I knew someone, and I did not. I certainly thought it was light. I thought it was funny. To me it’s still funny, the idea that you could give someone a kiss with a mask on. It’s still stupid. It’s all it was.”