Searchlight Pictures have reportedly halted production on upcoming film Being Mortal following a complaint made against Bill Murray.

It’s not known whether the release of Being Mortal, based on the nonfiction book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, set to debut in 2023, will be affected by this suspension in production.

This is what you need to know.

Being Mortal, which is set to mark Aziz Ansari’s (Master of None, Parks and Recreation) directorial debut, has been halted due to a complaint made against actor Bill Murray for inappropriate behaviour.

According to a letter sent to cast and crew members, and shared with US media outlets, Searchlight “immediately” investigated the complaint and decided that the production “cannot continue at this time.”

Per Vanity Fair, the letter said: “Late last week we were made aware of a complaint, and we immediately looked into it.

“After reviewing the circumstances, it has been decided that production cannot continue at this time.

“We are truly grateful to all of you for everything you’ve put into this project. Our hope is to resume production and are working with Aziz and [producer] Youree [Henley] to figure out timing.”

Deadline has reported that the complaint was filed last week, with production coming to a stop on Monday (18 April).

Last year, Lucy Liu (Elementary, Kill Bill) spoke about an altercation she had with Murray on the set of the 2000’s film Charlie’s Angels.

Talking on the podcast Asian Enough, hosted by Johana Bhuiyan, Tracy Brown, Suhauna Hussain and Jen Yamato, Lui said that the incident came about during a scene which had been changed in rehearsals without Murray’s knowledge.

She said: “We had taken the weekend to rework that particular scene and Bill Murray was not able to come because he had to attend some family gathering.

“So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid.

“I wish I had more to do with [the rewrite], but I didn’t. Because I was the last one cast, and I probably had the least amount of privilege, in terms of creatively participating at that time.”

Liu didn’t reveal specifically what Murray said, but shared that the actor started “to sort of hurl insults” at her after he found out about the rewrites.

She said: “I was, like, “Wow, he seems like he’s looking straight at me.” I couldn’t believe that [his comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time?

“I say, “I’m so sorry. Are you talking to me?”, and clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication.”

Liu described the language that Murray used at the time as “inexcusable and unacceptable”.

She added: “I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down.”

She went on to say that she has “nothing against” Murray and said: “I’ve seen him since then at an SNL reunion, and he came up to me and was perfectly nice.

“But I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.”

Throughout the course of his career, Murray has had a number of feuds with fellow co-stars, directors and producers.

Regarding his infamous mood swings, Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd even nicknamed Murray as “The Murricane”.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), who starred alongside Murray in the 1991 film What About Bob, said that he was a “drunken bully”.

In a 2019 interview with Yahoo, Dreyfuss said: “He came back from dinner [one night] and I said, “Read this [script tweak], I think it’s really funny.”

“And he put his face next to me, nose-to-nose. And he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!” There was no time to react, because he leaned back and he took a modern glass-blown ashtray.

“He threw it at my face from [a couple feet away]. And it weighed about three quarters of a pound. And he missed me. He tried to hit me. I got up and left.”

Charlie’s Angels director Joseph McGinty Nichol alleged in a 2009 interview with the Guardian that Murray headbutted him.

He said: “Square in the head. An inch later and my nose would have been obliterated.”

Murray however has denied that such an act took place.

Speaking about his reputation in 2018, Murray said: “I remember a friend said to me a while back: “You have a reputation.” and I said: “What?” and he said: “Yeah, you have a reputation of being difficult to work with”.

“But I only got that reputation from people I didn’t like working with, or people who didn’t know how to work, or what work is.”