Bill Murray admitted he was shocked by his 2004 Oscar loss to Sean Penn.

While appearing on Tuesday’s episode of The Howard Stern Show, the 74-year-old actor opened up about what it felt like to lose his category as the frontrunner after an otherwise victorious award season. 

Despite Murray winning the Golden Globe for his performance as Bob Harris in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, Penn, ultimately, took home the Best Actor trophy at the 76th Academy Awards for his starring role in Mystic River. 

‘It was sort of surprising,’ Murray recalled. ‘I won every other prize for Lost in Translation, so I just sort of thought I was gonna win, ’cause I’d won everything — every single one.’ 

Although he was initially disappointed, the performer said he sees the loss as ‘kinda good’ now. 

‘I realize that I’d actually gotten sort of infected by wanting to win it. It attracted a low-grade virus of the desire for more,’ Murray explained. ‘I had it for about six months; it had to wear off. So I did learn a lesson from it that if I’d won, I might not have ever seen.’

Bill Murray admitted he was shocked by his 2004 Oscar loss to Sean Penn

In 2004, Penn, 64, won the Oscar over Murray, Johnny Depp, Ben Kingsley and Jude Law.

Five years later, Penn, who has received five Academy Award nominations, earned his second Oscar for the drama Milk. 

Read More Bill Murray opens up about the pep talk he gave to the writers before the SNL 50th special

When Murray lost the award, his dismay was clear as sat in the audience and did his best to look like he expected the loss and didn’t care. 

Celebrity body language expert Judi James told Yahoo that it looked as though he was trying to ‘hold onto his dignity’ by acting like he ‘knew what was going to happen all along.’

‘It’s a display of cool machismo for the cameras,’ she explained, adding, ‘He held that look of vague boredom firmly in place as though not getting the Oscar was a matter of complete indifference.’

Lost in Translation was both a critical and commercial success and earned Coppola an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. 

The film also won three Golden Globe Awards and three British Academy Film Awards. 

The cult classic, which grossed $118 million on a $4 million budget, is still regarded as one of the best films from the 2000s. 

While appearing on Tuesday’s episode of The Howard Stern Show, the 74-year-old actor opened up about what it felt like to lose his category as the frontrunner after a strong award season; seen Sofia Coppola and Scarlett Johansson at a 2004 Oscars after-party

Despite Murray winning the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for his performance as Bob Harris in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, Penn, ultimately, took home the Best Actor trophy at the 76th Academy Awards for his starring role in Mystic River; seen in 2014

When Murray lost the award, his dismay was clear as sat in the audience and did his best to look like he expected the loss and didn’t care; seen bottom left

The film starred Murray as a fading movie star, suffering from a midlife crisis, who travels to Tokyo to appear in ads for Suntory’s Hibiki Whisky. 

His character crosses paths with Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent college graduate, who is staying at the same H๏τel and feeling similarly disenchanted by her life and marriage. 

In addition to Lost In Translation, Murray and Coppola have worked on two other projects together, the 2015 film, A Very Murray Christmas and the 2020 comedy, On The Rocks. 

Although he has not reunited with Johansson on screen since the 2003 film, she revealed that they bumped into each other at a bar after not seeing each other in a decade. 

Lost in Translation, which also starred Scarlett Johansson, was both a critical and commercial success and earned Coppola an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay; seen in 2003

‘I walked into a bar with my ex-boyfriend from a long time ago … and there was only one person at the bar and it was Bill Murray,’ she revealed while appearing on the Goop podcast.

‘It was so weird,’ she continued. ‘I walked in, and I saw him sitting there — nobody else there — and I was like, “Oh my God.” I had to walk out. I was like, “It’s Bill! I haven’t seen him in so long.”‘

Since it had been ‘more than a decade,’ she said she had to approach him and ‘see what’s up.’ 

‘It was such a weird moment. It was like a dream,’ the two-time Oscar nominee said of seeing Murray. ‘He was also surprised… it was kind of therapeutic.’ 

Overall, she said their reunion was ‘a cathartic experience’ in a ‘weird’ bar.