Bill Murray Trivia
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50 free Bill Murray trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bill Murray has no agent, answers a voicemail box when he feels like it, once got arrested on his 20th birthday for smuggling cannabis, and owns a slice of half a dozen minor-league baseball teams. He is also one of the great screen comedians, from Saturday Night Live and Caddyshack to Groundhog Day, Rushmore and Lost in Translation. This Bill Murray trivia quiz covers his whole career and the mythology around it: the Second City years, the Belushi connection, the four-year break at the Sorbonne, the ten Wes Anderson films, the Letterman firsts, the feuds and the Cubs. Questions range from easy (which Ghostbuster did he play, which film has him reliving February 2) to expert-level detail about the films he missed because nobody could reach him, his stint with the Grays Harbor Loggers and the album he cut with a cellist. It suits a movie night, a pub quiz or anyone who has argued about the best Murray performance. Every answer was checked against biographical and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Chicago suburb was Bill Murray born in 1950?
Evanston
Evanston: he was born at Evanston Hospital, but the family home was next door in Wilmette, which is why some biographies give Wilmette as his birthplace.
Q 02Bill Murray's older sister Nancy became what?
A nun
A nun: Sister Nancy Murray joined the Adrian Dominican Sisters, yet she shares the family trade, touring the world in a one-woman show as St. Catherine of Siena.
Q 03What job did the teenage Murray do to pay for his Jesuit high school education?
Golf caddy
Golf caddy: several Murray brothers caddied as teenagers, and one of them later turned those summers into the screenplay for Caddyshack.
Q 04Why was Murray arrested at O'Hare Airport on his 20th birthday in 1970?
Carrying marijuana in his luggage
Carrying marijuana in his luggage: he joked to another passenger that he had a bomb in his bag, and the search that followed turned up the drugs instead. He was given probation.
Q 05Before comedy, Murray enrolled at Regis University in Denver intending to become what?
A doctor
A doctor: he took pre-med courses at the Jesuit school but soon dropped out. In 2007 Regis surprised its famous dropout with an honorary doctorate anyway.
Q 06At which Chicago improv troupe did Murray get his start, studying under Del Close?
The Second City
The Second City: he joined looking for direction after dropping out of college, and the troupe soon launched him to New York and national television.
Q 07In 1975 Murray joined the cast of a short-lived ABC variety show hosted by which sportscaster?
Howard Cosell
Howard Cosell's ABC show had already taken the name Saturday Night Live, so the NBC sketch series that outlived it had to launch as NBC's Saturday Night.
Q 08Whose departure from Saturday Night Live opened the spot Murray filled in the show's second season?
Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase quit during season two and moved to Los Angeles. When he came back to host in 1978, he and Murray had a backstage punch-up before the show.
Q 09Which SNL castmate was Murray romantically involved with during his early seasons?
Gilda Radner
Gilda Radner and Murray dated during his first SNL seasons. By a friend's account, she later found Ghostbusters hard to watch because so many ex-boyfriends were in it.
Q 10What was Murray's first starring film role, in 1979?
Meatballs
Meatballs: director Ivan Reitman wasn't sure his star would turn up until shooting began. Murray played head counsellor Tripper in the low-budget summer-camp hit.
Q 11Which real-life writer did Murray portray in the 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam?
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson: Murray shared a house with the writer during the shoot and found the persona 'tough to shake'. SNL colleagues said he came back that autumn still talking like him.
Q 12Murray was the very first guest on which talk show, on February 1, 1982?
Late Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman: Murray came out picking a mock fight with the new host. 33 years later Letterman chose him as the last guest of his CBS show as well.
Q 13Murray agreed to star in Ghostbusters partly to get Columbia to finance which passion project?
The Razor's Edge
Q 21Which Wes Anderson film did Murray miss after catching COVID-19?
Asteroid City
Asteroid City: Murray caught the virus in Ireland four days before he was due on set, so Steve Carell stepped in as the motel manager. It ended his run of nine straight Anderson features.
Q 22Murray played Polonius in a 2000 film that moved which Shakespeare play to Manhattan?
Hamlet
Hamlet: Michael Almereyda's version turns Denmark into a Manhattan corporation, and Ethan Hawke's prince delivers 'To be or not to be' while wandering the Action aisle of a Blockbuster video store.
Q 23In The Royal Tenenbaums, Murray's Raleigh St. Clair is married to which member of the family?
Margot Tenenbaum
The Razor's Edge: Murray co-wrote the Somerset Maugham adaptation and insisted it stay a period piece. It flopped, and he later admitted of the studio, 'I was wrong and they were right.'
Q 14For whom was Murray's Ghostbusters role of Peter Venkman originally written?
John Belushi
John Belushi: Dan Aykroyd was writing one of his friend's lines when the call came that Belushi had died. The green ghost Slimer stayed in the film as a private tribute to him.
Q 15After Ghostbusters made him rich, Murray stepped away from films and moved his young family to which city?
Paris
Paris: Murray reportedly sat in on Sorbonne philosophy classes there and watched old films at the Cinémathèque.
Q 16Which 1990 film did Murray co-direct with its screenwriter, Howard Franklin?
Quick Change
Quick Change: Murray casually suggested they both direct, and the pair had to plead their case before a Directors Guild committee. He had not directed another film by 2025.
Q 17Which director fell out with Murray on the set of their 1993 time-loop comedy?
Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis: screenwriter Danny Rubin said they were 'like two brothers who weren't getting along'. They barely spoke for two decades until, by Ramis's daughter's account, Murray turned up at his door with doughnuts.
Q 18Who played the psychiatrist Murray torments in Frank Oz's 1991 comedy What About Bob?
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss: the friction was real. 'I drove him nuts, and he encouraged me to drive him nuts,' Murray said later, and Frank Oz admitted he was pleased his two leads didn't get along.
Q 19In which 1996 film does Murray turn up as Bill Murray to help the heroes win a big game?
Space Jam
Space Jam: the cameo was in the script from the start, but Murray ignored every go-between and only signed on once Michael Jordan asked him in person.
Q 20Which 1998 film began Murray's long collaboration with director Wes Anderson?
Rushmore
Rushmore: Murray liked the script so much he worked for union scale, about $9,000 by Anderson's estimate, and handed the director a blank check when Disney balked at a $75,000 helicopter shot.
Margot Tenenbaum: Gwyneth Paltrow played the secretive playwright. Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson modelled her meek husband on the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks.
Q 24What product is Murray's character Bob Harris in Tokyo to advertise in Lost in Translation?
Suntory whiskey
Suntory whiskey: Sofia Coppola took the idea from her childhood, when her father Francis Ford Coppola appeared in a real Suntory commercial in Japan with the director Akira Kurosawa.
Q 25Which character did Murray play in the 2000 film version of Charlie's Angels?
Bosley
Bosley: Murray took over the Angels' go-between from the TV series' David Doyle. He did not return for the 2003 sequel, where Bernie Mac played the character's brother instead.
Q 26Murray says he agreed to voice Garfield only after mistaking the screenwriter for one of which filmmaking duo?
The Coen brothers
The Coen brothers: the script was by Joel Cohen, with an h. Murray told GQ he only found out while recording his lines, though co-writer Alec Sokolow insists he knew all along.
Q 27Murray's oceanographer Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic was based on which real explorer?
Jacques Cousteau
Jacques Cousteau: he was Wes Anderson's childhood hero. Like the French diver, Zissou films his voyages from a research ship with its own mini-sub, and his crew wear red knit caps.
Q 28Which director made Broken Flowers (2005), Coffee and Cigarettes and The Dead Don't Die with Murray?
Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch: he wrote Broken Flowers with Murray in mind, and Murray's one condition was that every location be within an hour of his house. 'He gave us limitations that helped us,' the director said.
Q 29Which US president did Murray play in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt: the film is set around the June 1939 weekend when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stayed at his Hyde Park estate and were served hot dogs at a picnic.
Q 30Which animal did Murray voice in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox?
Mr. Badger
Mr. Badger: he is Fox's lawyer, who warns him against moving in next to three farmers. Anderson skipped the sound studio and recorded his cast out on a farm, in fields, barns and an attic.