Is this a photo of Bill Murray or Tom Hanks? The internet can't decide | Movies

Publish date: 2024-05-03
Movies This article is more than 7 years old

Is this a photo of Bill Murray or Tom Hanks? The internet can't decide

This article is more than 7 years old

A photo posted to a Facebook group triggered debate just as furious as that surrounding The Dress – is it Murray impersonating a crying baby, or is it Hanks?

Bill Murray’s mood swings were so tempestuous during the making of Ghostbusters that Dan Aykroyd nicknamed him The Murricane. The Groundhog Day actor doesn’t have an agent and instead uses a 1-800 number for pitches and offers. On his 20th birthday he was arrested trying to smuggle around 10lb of marijuana through Chicago’s O’Hare airport. He has jammed with Eric Clapton, lived and breathed Hunter S Thompson to play him in Where the Buffalo Roam, sung a duet with Clint Eastwood and tended an Austin bar for the night with members of the Wu-Tang Clan, giving everyone tequila shots no matter what they ordered.

There is already well-established folklore around the living legend that is Bill Murray, and now we have another one: when Bill Murray does an impression of a crying baby, he looks exactly like Tom Hanks.

In the biggest optical illusion the internet has encountered since The Dress, a photo posted to the Facebook group Reasons My Son Is Crying has triggered a debate just as furious, with many people convinced it’s the Forrest Gump actor, despite the original post stating it was Bill Murray.

Bill Murray, probably, with Laura DiMichele-Ross and her son Alexander. Photograph: Adam Ross (via Reasons My Son Is Crying)

The picture was posted to the Facebook group in 2013 by Laura DiMichele-Ross but was taken in October 2012 at St Andrews golf course in Scotland by her husband, Adam Ross. The photo features Laura holding her crying nine-month-old son, Alexander, in front of Murray, who is mimicking the child’s expression.

According to DiMichele-Ross, who lives in Perthshire, the photo “pops up on Facebook every few months”. This week, the photo was widely shared online again and became a trending item across social media and websites including Reddit.

“We are finding this very funny. I personally don’t see the resemblance to Tom Hanks but we’ve noticed that people have been mentioning it for years,” she told the Guardian.

She said that Murray was friendly and chatted to everyone at the golf course but that their encounter was brief. “We are big Ghostbusters fans and have grown up with his movies. Although I’m also a huge fan of Tom Hanks, so that would have been awesome as well.”

Two years later, DiMichele-Ross met Murray again when he was golfing with Huey Lewis, and she got him to sign the photo. “He got a laugh from it,” she said.

Does Alexander, who is now four, know that his photo is causing such a stir? “Nope. No clue. He barely knows that it’s him in the photo and doesn’t know who Bill is.”

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