Studio finds real ‘Steve Zissou’

In the end credits of Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” there’s an acknowledgement that Steve Zissou (played by Bill Murray) is a real person.

No, it’s not a joke.

Though writer/director Anderson (“The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Rushmore”) made the name up, the script clearance department at Buena Vista Pictures found a real Steve Zissou. This Zissou is a federal criminal trial lawyer based in Bay Side, N.Y., not the burned-out underwater explorer played by Murray.

“When I found out it was part of the title, I was a little annoyed. It’s a unique name, and I really didn’t want to share it,” says Zissou, 49.

But he had few legal options, he says, because Anderson’s film wasn’t directly about him.

“They could have made a movie about a New York lawyer who was an anti-Semitic terrorist pedophile, and I still couldn’t do anything about it,” Zissou says. “If it’s about the real Steve Zissou, then maybe you have a shot, but then you have to prove damages.”

Perhaps to be on the safe side, the movie studio negotiated with Zissou over use of his distinctive name. He declines to answer questions about the agreement’s confidential terms.

Despite his original discomfort at the thought of his unique name being used in a movie, “it’s been, to my surprise, a lot of fun,” Zissou says. “And I think Bill Murray is America’s greatest living actor.”

The use of real names for fictional characters isn’t always resolved so smoothly.

Eleven years after Richard Linklater’s cult hit “Dazed and Confused” opened in theaters, a trio of Texans (Andy Slater, Bobby Wooderson, Richard “Pink” Floyd) are suing the filmmaker and Universal Studios Inc. for “defamation” and “negligent infliction of emotional distress.”

The suit claims that Linklater did not obtain permission to use the names of his former high school acquaintances for the characters in his film about pot-smoking teens.

Zissou’s stepmother, Mary Zissou of Lakeside, Calif., was married to Stavros “Steve” Zissou for nearly 35 years before his death in 2000.

When she first saw the movie trailer and the title of the film, “I thought I was losing my mind completely,” she says. “I thought it was the most not-possible thing that would ever happen.”

She says she didn’t know her stepson was listed in the film credits.

“Well, that little rascal – he never told me,” she says.