Geena Davis Recalls Bill Murray Being ‘Difficult’ on Set

Geena Davis reflects on an uncomfortable exchange she had with Bill Murray early in her career in her new book, Dying of Politeness: A Memoir.

“I’ve never spoken about it publicly,” Davis, 66, tells PEOPLE of her time spent making the film Quick Change with Murray, 72, the same year she won an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist in 1989.

In her book, she writes that she was introduced to the Ghostbusters actor in a hotel suite, where Murray reportedly “insisted” on using a massage device on the actress.

“I said no multiple times, but he wouldn’t relent,” Davis writes in her memoir. “I would have had to yell at him and cause a scene if I was to get him to give up trying to force me to do it; the other men in the room did nothing to make it stop. I realized with profound sadness that I didn’t yet have the ability to withstand this onslaught — or to simply walk out.”

In the end, Davis says Murray “placed the thing on my back for a total of about two seconds.”

Later, when on the New York set of the film, Davis says Murray verbally berated her in front of the crew as she waited on a wardrobe adjustment. “There were easily more than 300 people there — and Murray was still screaming at me, for all to see and hear,” she writes.

“For publicity, I saw him after we made the movie, but other than that, I haven’t seen him or spoken to him,” Davis tells PEOPLE of Murray. “I figure it’s sort of rather universally known that he could be difficult to work with. And so I don’t feel like I’m busting him in a way that will necessarily shock him. I think he knows very well the way he can behave.”

A rep for Murray didn’t immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

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In 2021, Lucy Liu recalled a similarly heated exchange with Murray during the making of Charlie’s Angels.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times‘ Asian Enough podcast, Liu remembered how she and some costars reworked a particular scene for the 2000 movie but Murray was unable to attend the rehearsal. When he returned to shoot the scene, Liu claimed he was upset and unfairly singled her out.

“As we’re doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won’t get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on,” she said. “I was, like, ‘Wow, he seems like he’s looking straight at me.’ I couldn’t believe that [the comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time? I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, ‘I’m so sorry. Are you talking to me?’ And clearly, he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication.”

“Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it,” added Liu. ”

Earlier this year, Murray was accused of…