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Groundhog Day Destroyed Bill Murray's Friendship With Harold Ramis

The friendship between comedy icons Bill Murray and the late Harold "Egon" Ramis produced some of the funniest moments this world has seen: the duo worked on, among many things, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, and Groundhog Day.

Columbia Pictures

Unfortunately, what might be their most transcendental film was also when it all went to shit.

Murray didn't have to dig very deep to find the crotchetiness in the character of cursed weatherman Phil Connors -- his marriage was falling apart and from all accounts he was a surly mess. His bad attitude may have worked out well for the role, but it also resulted in his behavior becoming that dreaded bogeyman of directors everywhere: "difficult." Disagreements became the rule of the day, with Ramis shooting for a nice little comedy while Murray wanted the film to be a deep exploration of the human condition. Their creative partnership eventually devolved to the point where Murray constantly showed up late to call times and was, as Ramis tells it, "irrationally mean and unavailable" when he did honor the set with his presence.

2

Napoleon Dynamite's Pedro Had Evil Twin Troubles

Despite having exhortations to vote for his character plastered on every tchotchke at the mall circa 2006, the actor behind Pedro in the quirky classic Napoleon Dynamite, Efren Ramirez, didn't exactly go onto huge things after becoming instantly recognizable worldwide. He's not a rail-riding troubadour or anything, but his fame was sufficient enough to cause his life to become a drama-filled mess.

You see, Efren has an identical twin named Carlos, and reports suggest the latter may lack the sweet-natured, well-intentioned soul of Pedro. Striking while Efren's fame was still blazingly, well, warm, Carlos began posing as his brother at public appearances. He claims that he only did so at the request of Efren, who was "too busy" to make it to every social engagement that his agent lined up for him. Carlos did admit, however, at least one breach of fraternal etiquette: "I did attend an event without his knowledge as I was being immature and wanted to get back at him for a personal matter which involved the girl I was dating at the time." He didn't elaborate on that, presumably hoping a studio buys the rights to the full story.

Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

What suggests that Carlos' hijinks weren't all that innocent after all is the fact that Efren threatened to sue him, and slapped him with a cease-and-desist order so that unsuspecting attendees of boat shows would no longer be tricked into worshiping a false Pedro. After all of that, Carlos remained upbeat about the possibility of reconciling with his estranged brother: "I would love to talk to Efren. Maybe even work together in the future. His support would be amazing. I think it's safe to say the magnitude of Napoleon Dynamite and everything that has come along with it, has ruined my relationship with my twin." In other words, it's the movie's fault and he learned exactly bupkis.

1

An Injury During Syriana Made George Clooney Contemplate Suicide

The political thriller Syriana was kind of a monkey's paw situation for George Clooney. Sure, his role of CIA operative Bob Barnes earned him an Oscar for best supporting actor, but it came at the cost of excruciating, months-long, potentially life-ending pain.

During the scene where Clooney's strapped to a chair and receiving a pummeling/fingernail removal procedure in the course of his governmental duties, the chair tipped over and caused the actor to go bonk on the concrete. Here he is explaining what happened next: "I tore my dura, which is the wrap around my spine that holds in the spinal fluid. But it's not my back; it's my brain. I basically bruised my brain. It's bouncing around my head because it's not supported by the spinal fluid."

Warner Bros. Pictures

We joke, but for Clooney it was dead serious. The resulting headaches drove him to distraction, and he refused to take any meds for them out of fear of becoming part of the opioid addiction epidemic that's all the rage today.

Concentrating was not an easy task, and he was reduced to writing his lines on scraps of paper for his performance in Good Night, And Good Luck. It got so bad that Clooney admits suicide started looking like a reasonable option. Eventually, a neurologist got to the bottom of his problem and solved the issue with multiple surgeries, and Clooney's greatest preoccupation went back to being psychologically tormenting his best friends.

E. Reid Ross is the author of Nature Is The Worst: 500 Reasons You'll Never Want To Go Outside Again, which is in stores now and available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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