Watch Naomi Watts and Bill Murray in the trailer for The Friend

In The Friend, writer and teacher Iris (Naomi Watts) finds her comfortable, solitary New York life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor (Bill Murray) dies suddenly and bequeaths her his beloved 150 lb. Great Dane. The regal yet intractable beast, named Apollo, immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones, his looming presence constantly reminding her of her friend’s problematic choices in both life and death. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with the animal, she begins to come to terms with her past, her lost friend, and her own creative inner life.

The film is from the writing and directing team of Scott McGehee and David Siegel. It is based on the novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez.

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Soon after reading The Friend, the writer-directors met with Nunez to discuss the book and some of the nuances of her story. “Sigrid, from the first conversation on, was like, ‘I am not a scriptwriter, but ask me whatever you want,’” Siegel says. “She was lovely that way. We got to know her and got to know her humor and the cadence of her speech. Sigrid has a very particular way of writing, it’s a kind of fiction/auto-fiction, and it has a lovely rhythm to it.”

In talking with the writer-directors, Watts discovered that they were hoping to cast Bill Murray to play Walter, and she immediately sparked to the idea. They had
previously worked together a decade earlier on the indie dramedy St. Vincent, forging a true bond on the set of that film and remaining friends long after.

However, getting scripts to Murray is notoriously difficult, so Watts took it upon herself to reach out to see if he might consider working with her once more on THE FRIEND. “I got so hooked on that idea and couldn’t see anybody else in that role, but I knew that he’s the hardest man to get hold of,” Watts says. “Still, I loved the idea so much that it became my mission. But you can’t rush Bill. You can’t forward him scripts or anything digitally. You have to hand deliver a printed version. It so happened that he was staying in New York at a hotel by me. I printed the script and got the book from the guys, and they wrote a little note. I delivered it to reception. Then he read it, and he really liked it. I think he was really moved by it.”

The Friend opens in New York City on 28th March before opening wide on 4th April.