Bill Murray Admits He Thought It Was 'Surprising' He Lost Oscar for "Lost in Translation" to Sean Penn
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03/27/2025 01:20 PM
Sean Penn won the Best Actor trophy in 2004 over Bill Murray for his performance in 'Mystic River'
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From L: Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (2003); Sean Penn in Mystic River (2003)- Bill Murray said on The Howard Stern Show that he found it "surprising" he lost the Oscar for 2003's Lost in Translation
- "I'd won everything," said Murray, who nabbed lead-acting trophies at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards
- Sean Penn, who also won the Critics Choice Award, ended up taking home the Best Actor Oscar for Mystic River
Bill Murray was taken aback by his 2004 Academy Awards loss.
The actor, who is currently starring in Riff Raff and The Friend, shared on The Howard Stern Show Tuesday, March 25, what it felt like losing the Best Actor trophy to Mystic River actor Sean Penn after an otherwise sweep of that awards season.
"It was sort of surprising," said Murray, 74. "I won every other prize for Lost in Translation, so I just sort of thought I was gonna win, 'cause I'd won everything — every single one."
"And then I didn't win [the Oscar], so I was like, 'Well,' " he told host Howard Stern.
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"But," said the actor of his loss, "it was kinda good — I realize that I'd actually gotten sort of infected by wanting to win it. It attracted a low-grade virus of the desire for more."
"I had it for about six months; it had to wear off. So I did learn a lesson from it that if I'd won, I might not have ever seen," Murray added.
Penn, 64, and Murray were up for Best Actor at the 76th Academy Awards alongside fellow nominees Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl), Ben Kingsley (House of Sand and Fog) and Jude Law (Cold Mountain).
Directed by Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation starred Murray as Bob, an aging out-of-work actor who strikes up an unlikely kinship with married college grad Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) while abroad in Tokyo as they contemplate their futures and feelings of loneliness.
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Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003)Murray did, in fact, take home a slew of trophies for his role, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award and an Independent Spirit Award. (Depp, 61, won the SAG Award that year, while Penn nabbed the Critics Choice Award.)
Later, when Murray was honored with the Maltin Modern Master Award at the 2021 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, he spoke of his deep appreciation for his Lost in Translation director Coppola, 53, who also wrote the film.
"I love Sofia. It's great because the longer I know her the more I love her and the more I get to love. I see that she's a real American woman," he said in PEOPLE's exclusive clip of his conversation for the award, honoring an individual who has enriched culture through accomplishments in the industry.
"A working mother, and an artist, and a sister, and a wife. She's all those things and I am none of those things, so it's kind of fun," Murray added. "I completely get to give myself up to it. I can really admire all things because I am not."
