Karen Allen Thinks She Knows Why Bill Murray Went So Off-Script With Scrooged

In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Karen Allen reflected on Bill Murray ad-libbing in “Scrooged,” suggesting it was part of his process:

“I think Bill had a resistance to saying the lines that were written, but often he did know them. He had learned them. And sometimes, he would just need to improvise for a while to get to the place where he could actually say the lines. His dialogue came out of a more spontaneous place inside him. So he had his own kind of process.”

The idea that Murray resisted reading the lines from the script is interesting because he helped develop the screenplay. Murray disliked the original “Scrooged” script, and helped screenwriters Mitch Glazer and the late Michael O’Donoghue craft a new draft. In a 1990 interview with the late renowned movie critic Roger Ebert, Murray lauded the shooting script and opined the movie could have been “really, really great” before he called out Richard Donner’s directorial style.

So if Murray liked the script — and even contributed to its development — why improvise? My theory is that improvising helped the “Ghostbusters” star feel comfortable. Up until that point, Murray had found his biggest success from being a part of ensemble casts, working alongside other sketch comedy veterans like John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, and Rick Moranis. It makes sense that ad-libbing would be a big part of the on-set culture for people with backgrounds in improvisational comedy and was — as Allen suggested — just part of Murray’s process for getting into a role.