As Bill Murray legend has it, if you want to get ahold of the actor to talk about life, love, or a potential movie project, you have to track down a mythical 1-800 number and leave a message. The actor does not have a lawyer. He does not have an agent. He just has the 1-800 number which—according to filmmaker Theodore Melfi, who was miraculously able to cast Murray in St. Vincent, out this October—annoyingly does not even have his voice on the recording. So if you get through to the alleged number, and manage to navigate the voicemail menu, you are never really sure that you’ve left a message for the right person.

But just because the actor does not have any contact numbers on record does not mean that the elusive actor does not have a phone. The Telegraph managed to nail down an in-person interview with Murray during the Toronto International Film Festival, and asked the actor—who pops up randomly at ice-cream socials, minor-league baseball turnstiles, and engagement-photo shoots—just how he stays connected with the world.

Turns out that the actor does have a cell phone, which he uses for one thing only: texting. He sends messages, receives them, and judging by the amount of text messages that he says he received on Toronto’s Bill Murray Day, more than a few people have the number. (Describing the holiday, Murray tells The Telegraph, “I rode my bicycle around the streets and people called out to me and waved and I had a lot of texts and I saw a lot of old friends.”) For other electronic needs, Murray reveals that he has an iPad that is primarily used to play the game Clash of Clans with one of his six sons. Confirming the obvious, Murray added, “I don’t like talking on the telephone.”

The actor will, however, pick up the phone if he hears of a project that sounds interesting. While in Toronto, Melfi described, in nerve-thrashing detail, the weeks he spent trying to get in contact with Murray to USA Today. In the end, it wasn’t even the many voicemails he left over the course of nearly two months that reached Murray—it was a snail-mail letter that he sent to to a post office recommended by Murray’s lawyer. The events that then unfurled, per Melfi:

Two or three weeks after [mailing a script] I was driving down the road I'm in the middle of a commercial job and my phone rings and he goes, 'Ted? It's Bill Murray. Is this a good time?'

I pull over and he goes, ‘Listen, I got this script of yours and I don't know who you are. I don't Google people. I don’t know who you are, what you do. Tell me about yourself.’ So that was 20 minutes of me stammering around trying to tell Bill Murray who I am. And he goes, ‘Well, that sounds good.’ And this was on a Wednesday; I was shooting a commercial the next day. And he goes, ‘Want to get together and have a coffee and talk about the script?’ I say, ‘I’d love to.’ He goes, ‘How about tomorrow?’ And I go, ‘Well, it depends on what time, maybe ...’ Bill goes, ‘In New York.’ (Melfi was in L.A.) Bill goes, ‘Oh. How about Friday?’ I say, ‘Um, I don’t think I can get (to New York) on Friday. He says, ‘No, in Cannes.’

The epic casting yarn—transcribed in full here—involves Melfi finally meeting Murray for the first time weeks later at L.A.X. airport at a predetermined location near baggage claim. From the airport, the duo got in a car, talked about the film over the three-hour drive to an Indian reservation—the whole time Melfi had no idea where they were going—where the actor apparently has a house. Once there, the story continues:

“We pull into this house and he tours me around. He's got tangelo trees and avocado growing next door. I used the bathroom. I go back outside and he goes, ‘Alright, this is great. Do you think we should do it?’ (Melfi says he‘d love to.) He goes, ‘O.K., we’re gonna do it. We’ll make the movie.’ I said, ‘That’s so great Bill, just one thing, if you could do one thing for me. Could you tell someone other than me that this happened? No one is going to believe this story. I can’t possibly go to the studio and say Bill Murray said yes on the way to the Indian reservation in the back of a town car. Murray said, ‘I’ll call someone, don’t worry about it.’ ”

The morals of the story: (1) If you have been trying to get in touch with Murray, always pick up calls from unknown phone numbers. (2) If you are lucky enough to arrange a meeting with Murray, do not get startled if he drives for three hours away from all major cities. And (3), aside from your grandparents, Bill Murray may be the only other person to rely on snail mail.

Related: 15 Hours in Search of Bill Murray, and His Legend, on Bill Murray Day