isle of naps

Bill Murray Couldn’t Be Bothered to Stay Awake During Isle of Dogs Panel

Onstage during SXSW? Perfect time for a nap.
bill murray isle of dogs
By Gary Miller/FilmMagic/Getty Images.

Bill Murray is as much a meme as he is a man. For the last several years, the comedian has cultivated a mythic reputation for doing, well, pretty much whatever he wants—whenever he wants to do it. Crashing a Bill Murray-themed ice-cream social? Check. Going to a random house party and washing all the dishes? Of course. Sneaking into a White House press conference just to celebrate the Cubs winning the World Series? No, now you’re being ridic—oh, just kidding, he did that too.

So it should come as no surprise that the patron saint of party whimsy gave us several more Murray moments at South by Southwest over the weekend, where he was on hand to promote the Wes Anderson film Isle of Dogs. He kicked off his run by doing a public reading of a poem about dogs, accompanied by cellist and frequent collaborator Jan Vogler, cheerfully mocked a fan at an Isle of Dogs panel, then promptly fell asleep when he got bored of said panel. Because there’s no better time for a nap than when you’re onstage in front of hundreds of people.

The Murrayisms began with the comedian reading the 1958 poem “Dog” by Beat-era poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Dozens of festival-goers watched as Murray loudly recited the verse, supported by Vogler on his cello. In the bottom-right corner of this recording, you can see Anderson himself excitedly recording the pair on his iPhone. (Somewhere out there Christopher Nolan is positively scoffing.)

“All right, let’s not overdo it,” Murray declared when the poem was done. “Break up, there’s nothing to see here. Move along.”

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Next, at the Isle of Dogs panel, Murray joined the rest of the eccentric stop-motion film’s voice cast (including Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, and Kunichi Nomura) for a screening and a fan Q&A. When one audience member stepped up to the mic, then accidentally forgot the question they were going to ask, Murray responded by quipping, “Sir, you might want to loosen that headband,” according to USA Today—referring to the free “PRO-DOG” headband that everyone in the crowd received.

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After that, though, Murray must have been tuckered from a long day of whimsy and quips. He eventually closed his eyes to catch a few, quick micro-naps during the panel, as evidenced by a video captured by USA Today reporter Carly Mallenbaum. Knowing his unknowable schedule, Murray was probably planning to crash a karaoke session or a bachelorette party later that night—so the man’s got to rest when he can.