The French (Fry) Dispatch.
Hollywood’s own Hamburglar Bill Murray poked fun at the longstanding urban myth that he occasionally swipes french fries from unsuspecting strangers.
“Man’s gotta eat, man’s gotta eat,” he quipped to Page Six of the internet rumors that began in the 2010s.
Sometimes, fries “often just lean off a plate and they’re ready” for the taking, Murray joked Wednesday at a Cinema Society screening of his new film “Riff Raff,” noting that people “usually have a couple of spares.”
“Come on, it’s New York! There’s a lot of excess here, there’s plenty of food,” he told us.
Over the years, rumors abounded online that Murray had a habit of running off with random people’s french fries.
Fifteen years ago, a person posted on social media that they had been eating some fries in midtown Manhattan when they “noticed a hand slip around me from behind and grab two of my fries.”
Before they had a chance to say anything, a man they claimed to be Murray was walking away and allegedly yelled over the crowd, “No one will ever believe you.”
And, in 2016, a fan posted a photo of Murray, 74, seemingly pilfering some fries off a friend’s plate in Martha’s Vineyard.
Murray has been cagey about the potato prank in the past.
During a 2018 interview with the BBC, Murray said, “I don’t know if that really happened, but to me… there’s nothing better than stealing piping hot french fries, that’s living… they’re free, they’re right there, they’re bonus potatoes.”
Though he may be a real-life food thief, Murray plays a fictional hitman in his new film “Riff Raff.”
“The writing is really extraordinary,” the “Ghostbusters” actor told Page Six at the screening of falling in love with the script. “People usually say that with complete insincerity but this is a movie [that] I could not believe each page as I turned … and so that’s what hooked me on doing this.”
Murray, who famously does not have an agent or manager, got ahold of the script from a friend’s brother.
“[My friend] called me and said, ‘I got no skin in this but my brother’s doing this movie…,’ so I got to come in at the last minute,” he explained.
Murray was also seen recently at the “SNL50” celebration, which he confessed to us was “really emotional” for him.
“There’s a lot of history there and a lot of friends and I could go now [and start crying] thinking about my friends who are gone now, it was very emotional for those of us that came early,” he said.
The “Groundhog Day” star stayed for the screening of the film — which also stars Ed Harris, Pete Davidson, Gabrielle Union and Jennifer Coolidge — and happily mingled with the crowd at the afterparty which was held at Monsieur, a new bar from Baz Luhrmann and Jon Neidich.
