Bill Murray Learned “Groundhog Day ”Woodchuck Was Wild After It Bit Him Twice During Filming

NEED TO KNOW

• Bill Murray says the groundhog used on set of the 1993 movie Groundhog Day was actually a wild animal, not a trained one

• In a 2025 episode of Hot Ones, Murray explained that the animal bit him — twice — requiring him to get a rabies shot

• The actor said he still has a scar from the incident

Bill Murray learned a bit too late that the animal used on the set of his 1993 film Groundhog Day was not trained, but actually a wild woodchuck.

Speaking on the March 6, 2025 episode of First We Feast’s Hot Ones, Murray, 75, shared that he learned the animal was wild after it bit him twice on the finger.

Noting that he still had a “nodule” on his finger from the animal.

“He got me back to back, two days in a row,” Murray told host Sean Evans of the groundhog, who in the movie played the part of the prophetic Punxsutawney Phil.

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He continued: “And the second day … I thought I was being smart, and I put some fisherman’s gloves — like steel gloves on — underneath the gloves I was wearing. His teeth went right through the steel. Yeah, their teeth are about that long.”

“I got upset with the animal wrangler. I said, ‘Who the hell trained this gopher?’…with real rage, you know, ‘I am not leaving my trailer,’ ” he explained. “And the two of them — they were like a guy and gal couple … [they said] ‘Well, he’s really rather wild.’ “

Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (left) and now

Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy; Michael Loccisano/WireImage

“‘Wild? What do you mean he’s wild?’” the actor recalled responding. “‘We caught him just over that way, over by that field, we caught him there like two weeks ago.’”

He concluded, “So, you know, you get what you paid for.”

In the film, directed by Harold Ramis, Murray plays a jaded weatherman who becomes caught in a time loop, and must relive one day over and over.

The film also co-starred Andie MacDowell, who said in a 2023 interview, “For me, Groundhog Day was a perfect movie.”

“It’s sort of like [It’s] a Wonderful Life, in that you watch this movie and it makes you realize how gorgeous life is and how to be a good person,” MacDowell, now 67, explained. “There’s a really deep message to it, and I think that’s what makes it — on top of it being just fun — so beautiful.”

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