Murray takes it all in his stride

There's a scene late in Bill Murray's new dramatic comedy St. Vincent - so late, in fact, the credits are already rolling - that is seemingly innocuous yet tells you a lot about Murray and this performance, and in fact Murray as a performer.

The film, about a gruffly comedic Vietnam vet and his unlikely friendship with a young boy, has ended, its drama complete.

Nothing is left to be said or resolved, no more jokes left to make. Murray exits the back door of his character's modest South Brooklyn home and attempts to water his lawn - really, a dirt patch with a few weeds in it.

As Bob Dylan's Shelter From the Storm plays both over the credits and in Murray's ancient Walkman, Murray attempts to sing along. He is slightly behind the tempo, missing lyrics, going off-key. He's also trying in vain to get the hose situated correctly, as it keeps falling over. Undaunted, he seeks new ways to position it. The names of the people who worked on the film continue rolling.

There is no big joke, and not really any new information. And yet there is something compelling about it. In part it's that he just seems to be having fun. But it's more than that, something ineffable, a subtle demonstration of talent, showing off his skills by not seeming to show off his skills.

As co-star Melissa McCarthy said: "I couldn't believe that scene when I first saw. There's just something about it. I could watch Bill do that for 17 hours."

Film fans might not be blessed with that much Murray. But they may still get plenty in the months ahead. With his St. Vincent opening on Boxing Day it will start a chain of Murray-ness that will make anyone who's worn out a DVD of Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day very happy.

Following this film comes a movie from Barry Levinson called Rock the Kasbah in which Murray plays a washed-up music manager who, on a trip to Afghanistan, discovers a young local singing talent, then backs her efforts on a Kabul-set reality show. Then there is the romantic comedy he shot with Cameron Crowe - Murray has a supporting role in the untitled Hawaii-shot picture, which features Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper in the lead parts.

"It feels a little like when you've got an ace in the hole and no one knows it yet," Murray said ruefully in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where St. Vincent premiered in September.

Directed by the feature-film first-timer Theodore Melfi, St. Vincent stars Murray as Vincent, a no-nonsense curmudgeon who has reduced his life to a simple but eclectic set of tasks - tooling around in a convertible, hanging out with a brassy Russian stripper and part-time prostitute (Naomi Watts), making frequent (and losing) bets at the track and visiting an older woman in a nursing home in New Jersey.

He eats sardines and has a surprising love for his cat. He seems unhappy but may in fact be happy being this unhappy.

Into this sideways routine comes Oliver (pint-sized newcomer Jaeden Lieberher), who has moved in next door with his newly separated mum (Melissa McCarthy). Oliver is guileless and agreeable, and soon the two have formed an unlikely friendship. The relationship develops in ways you've seen in intergenerational dramedies before but somehow it maintains its comedy, even as it goes to poignant and dramatic places.

"This movie starts out funny and it becomes something different. It's an unusual structure that way," Murray said. "It goes places and it can be rough."

How Murray came to star in St. Vincent is now the stuff of legend. After Jack Nicholson decided not to do the movie, Melfi wanted to cast Murray. He pursued Murray for several months and out of the blue the actor offered to meet Melfi for coffee the following day - but in New York.

The director was in Los Angeles and said he couldn't make it on such short notice. Murray said he could meet the following day - and, by the way, did he mention it would be in Cannes? With family and work responsibilities, Melfi again regretfully declined, thinking he had lost him for good.

A few weeks later, Murray texted Melfi and said he was coming to Los Angeles and could the filmmaker possibly meet him at United baggage claim (not a spot where a notable meeting is likely to take place).

Sure enough, Murray turned up, dressed casually, with golf clubs in hand. The two bought some grilled-cheese sandwiches and Murray had a driver take them out to Palm Springs, where they discussed the script the whole way. Murray's main concern was that the story not have too much sentimentality - heart was OK, schmaltz was not. Melfi said he felt exactly the same way.

Then they reached a town near Palm Springs and Murray said that this was his stop. He gave the driver a few hundred dollars and told him to take Melfi back to Los Angeles. "I basically drove seven hours to end up right back where I started," Melfi said. "But I was pretty sure I had him."

Murray has always been about a kind of cool detachment. But that detachment seems to have increased lately, both in his roles and his life. He is as reluctant as ever to indulge in the Hollywood bustle, and with all his work in Wes Anderson films over the past 15 years, his eyebrow has sometimes arched ever-higher on screen.

"You try to make your life and your work so that they can just go one with another," he said. "They're here." He makes a gesture that brings his two hands together. "You really want them to fit together."

He continued: "There are people who are desperate or needy and I feel some actors can be desperate or needy. They need to be loved, and their performance sort of shows that.

"It's like, God, you're already on a movie screen, relax. Somebody's already watching you eight feet high. You don't have to be that pushy about it."

Rumours that he lives off the grid save for a toll-free number with voice mail that is checked by either him or his lawyer may be slightly exaggerated - during the interview there is a smart phone on a side table, and it pings occasionally with news of a message, though one can't rule out the possibility that it is pinging with an alert that there is a new message on the toll-free number's voice mail.

Still, there's a kind of hand-wave to most other accoutrements. There are no handlers - no manager, no agent, not five publicists fawning over their client or calling journalists to ask about a story's placement. This is what reporting on entertainment must have been like in medieval times.

"You're not really an island. Life is hard enough. Even if your goal is to be self-sufficient, you need all kinds of influences, including negative ones, to challenge what you believe in," he said when asked why he's stripped it down.

"But in terms of this other stuff, that's really learning, growing. I realised I didn't need all that stuff. I didn't need those particular trappings to do the work. I love doing the work. I really do. But all the trappings - the handlers, I don't need that . . . I don't need it because I know it gets in the way."

Murray's mystique has grown despite - or because of - his intermittent communication and shoulder-shrugging stance in an age of, well, constant communication and celebrity positioning. It's an anomaly he says he's somewhat aware of but doesn't seek to cultivate.

"People seem to like me on their own terms. There's not a fanatic group of people out there. It's not like a Bieber or Miley Cyrus thing. But people seem to just take it and relax and say 'I enjoy this guy'. I mean, that's how I like to handle it too (with other entertainers).

"It's like 'This guy's cool, he's not shilling all the time'. I pretty much go out only to sell my movies. It's not like 'Oh God, I'm doing a movie.' I don't want to get down anyone's throat."

'People seem to like me on their own terms. There's not a fanatic group of people out there.'