Eddie Murphy has been so famous for so long, occupying such a lofty place in the cultural landscape, that it can be easy to overlook just how game-changing a figure he actually is.
Let’s start, as Murphy’s career did, with standup. There had been star comics before — Steve Martin, Richard Pryor — but none exploded with anything like Murphy’s speed or intensity. Swaggering, magnetic and able to bounce between sweet personal storytelling and controversial, defiantly un-P.C. material, he was, and forgive me for mixing disciplines, a rock star. “Eddie Murphy: Raw,” released in 1987 when he was only 26, is the highest-grossing standup-comedy film ever — still. The scale of his success, and the fact he achieved it without dulling his edge, redefined what a comedian could do, paving the way for the likes of Kevin Hart and Chris Rock.
He also, of course, cast his spell on TV. When Murphy arrived at “Saturday Night Live” in 1980, the show was thought to be on the verge of cancellation. Through sheer force of charisma as well as instantly iconic, hilariously unpredictable recurring characters like his crotchety Gumby and the Mr. Rogers parody Mr. Robinson, Murphy brought the show back to life. A highly plausible argument can be made that without him, television’s most reliable comedy-star-making machine might not have made it to a 10th anniversary, let alone be nearing its 50th.
But Murphy made his greatest mark in movies, where he reached new heights, for comedians and Black performers, of popularity and bankability. He helped pioneer the action-comedy genre with his quippy, improvisational-feeling performances in movies like “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 Hrs.” And then in the mid-1990s, after a bit of a career dip, he transitioned to family-friendly films like “Shrek” and “The Nutty Professor” (one of multiple comedies in which Murphy virtuosically played wildly different characters), and continued to score giant hits.
All of which is to say that American pop culture looked different after Eddie Murphy came along. Now he’s returning to the character that sent his career into the stratosphere with “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” which comes to Netflix on July 3. It arrives 40 years after the first film in the series, in which Murphy stars as the wisecracking detective Axel Foley. He is clearly comfortable with the role — and with himself. In recent years, Murphy has been a somewhat enigmatic offscreen presence, but as I found out over the course of our two long conversations in the spring, he can be open and relaxed. He was eager to reflect on what he has achieved, share some Hollywood stories, explain why doing standup doesn’t appeal to him anymore and reveal the dream project he has never gotten off the ground.
When things were skyrocketing, around the time of the first “Beverly Hills Cop,” did you feel you understood what it was about you that met the moment so perfectly? No, and not even in retrospect. I was 22 when I got to do “Beverly Hills Cop” and 20 years old when I started doing “48 Hrs.” Now I look back at those times, and I trip about how young I was. But back then I kind of took it for granted. One thing had led to another, and I wound up on a movie set. Then when stuff worked and became hit movies, I was like, “OK, that’s what it’s supposed to be.”
You said you took it for granted, which, that’s crazy. Yeah, but I knew. I started at maybe around 13, 14, saying that I was going to be famous. I’d tell my mother, “When I’m famous. …” So when I got famous, it was like, “See, I told you.” I was having these famous people that I grew up watching on television wanting to have a meal with me. After “48 Hrs.” Marlon Brando calls my agent and wants to meet me. Now I look back and go, “Wow, that’s crazy: The greatest actor of all time wants to have dinner with you!” But back then I just thought, Well, that’s the way it is: You make a movie, and Marlon Brando calls.
Do you remember that dinner? Oh, yeah. The first time we were supposed to meet was at the L’Ermitage in Los Angeles. He came to the hotel, and we had dinner at the restaurant on the top. The second time was at his house, and he came and picked me up at the hotel. But there was a time mix-up, and I came down like a half-hour late — he was waiting for me in the car. [Laughs.] We went to his house on Mulholland; I was just going on and on about “The Godfather,” and he was like, “Eh, ‘The Godfather.’” Not just “The Godfather” — acting. He was like, “Acting is bullshit, and everybody can act.” This is how long ago it was: He was going, “I can’t stand that kid with the gun.” I was like, “What kid with the gun?” He said, “He’s on the poster!” I was like, “Clint Eastwood?” “Yeah, that guy!” He was calling Clint Eastwood “that kid.”
Are there folks who you see coming up and think, I’m curious about this person? Is there some 21-, 20-year-old that’s on the scene that I’m calling my agent going, “Hey?” [Laughs.] Absolutely not. I’m so out of touch. I ask my wife, who’s this person? She’ll be like, “They’re the biggest thing in the world.”
Can you name a Taylor Swift song? No, I can’t. I’m sorry.
I just watched a good conversation between you and Jerry Seinfeld. In it, you described yourself as fundamentally a comedian. I fundamentally think of myself as a comedian? I said that?
Does that sound wrong? Yeah, because I don’t think of myself as a comedian at all. That’s one aspect of who I am. I just see myself as an artist. I’m a supersensitive artist, and I can express myself creatively in a bunch of different ways.
What do you mean when you describe yourself as a supersensitive artist? I can pick up energy. If I walk in a room, I can tell who’s getting ready to come over and say something and who’s trying to act like they don’t care that I’m there. It’s why being at awards shows — the most horrible energy in the world is a room full of famous people going through their whole famous thing: who’s the most famous and who’s cool and who’s not. I hate that feeling.
Just to go back to the Seinfeld thing: I think he was kind of nudging you, like, when are you going to do standup again? I’m not a comic. I still do funny things, and I write funny stuff, but I haven’t been a comic since I was 27.
Is it appealing to you? I used to have little periods where I’d be like, “I’m going to do it again.” The closest I got to doing it again was right before the pandemic. Because I had done “Saturday Night Live,” and I was like, “Let me go do one standup special and bring it all full circle.” Then the pandemic hit, and when you’re stuck in the house for two years — I wasn’t going, “When I get out of here, I want to do stand up again!” Here’s a good analogy. It’s like somebody that was in the military. They were on the front line in Vietnam, and they got all these medals because they did all this amazing stuff. Then they moved up and became a general. So it’s like going to the general and saying: “Hey, you ever think about going back to the front line? You want to have bullets whiz past your ear again?” No!
Do you have a dream project? Oh, gee, I don’t know. I don’t have something that’s been sitting around for years. Well, actually, I do. This one thing I’ve been threatening to do for years called “Soul, Soul, Soul.” It’s like this fake documentary that I love.
What would the fake documentary be about? It’s a “Zelig” kind of thing, where it’s this guy who’s part of the rock ’n’ roll, R.&B. thing back in the ’60s and worked with everybody; all these great moments, and he’s attached to all of these things. [Laughs.] Where’s my phone? You can see this, and you’ll be like, “Hey, You should do that.” Where is “Soul, Soul, Soul”? Can you see that?
At this point in the interview, Murphy pulled up a trailer on his phone — a very long, very polished and very funny trailer — that he made years ago for the mock documentary he just described. All I can say is, this movie needs to be made. You can hear some of the trailer if you listen to the audio version of this interview.
Well, I’d see that. I’m telling you, I almost made this movie a bunch of times. I’ve been right to where I was going to make it and then said, “No, not right now,” because I feel like it’s so self-indulgent, and only a few people would go see it — but they would laugh so hard.
When you’re not working, what’s an ideal day? I like a day where there’s nothing, and I can hear my kids, wherever they’re at, and I sit around and do nothing, play guitar.
Was it always like that? Yeah. When I was a little boy, when we would get in trouble, the punishment for my brothers was that they couldn’t go outside. When I got in trouble, the punishment was I couldn’t watch TV. I could go outside, but instead I would be sitting in the house crying because I couldn’t watch TV.
What do you watch now? I’m ashamed to say the stuff I watch now.
Tell me. It’s not hip stuff. Every night at 6 o’clock, before I eat dinner, I watch Steve Harvey and “Family Feud.” I watch “The Masked Singer.” [Laughs.] My wife and I, we watch all of those shows, the singing competitions and that kind of stuff. Last year, I watched all of “The Golden Bachelor.” You know they broke up?
I know. What kind of [expletive] is that? I watched that, I was like, “This is so nice, they found love in the second part of their life.” Then I find out these [expletive] broke up three months later!
Wait, when you described yourself as sensitive — That’s funny. “I’m very sensitive.” You go, “What do you watch?” “Uh, ‘Family Feud.’” [Laughs.]
Around the time of the “Saturday Night Live” 40th anniversary, Norm Macdonald posted a story on Twitter about how they were trying to get you to be on a “Celebrity Jeopardy!” sketch for the show. The thing he said that was most interesting to me was that everyone knew it would kill, but you didn’t want to do it. Norm said, “Eddie doesn’t need the laughs the way that the rest of us need the laughs.” What is your relationship to the audience? Do you feel as if you need something from it? I never take the audience into consideration. I’m like, “This is what I’m doing.” If the audience likes it, great, and if they don’t like it, everything isn’t for everybody. A lot of comedians started out as the outsider-type person who used their sense of humor to become an insider. Because I was funny, I was always a really popular guy. So I’m not that needy comic; they were laughing from the very beginning. I never went through that period that comics go through where you’re trying to find what’s funny about me and trying to get laughs and bombing and all that.
You always had the audience’s approval. But at some point, does money become the thing that shows your status? The money showed my status?
Yeah. I didn’t have that either. After “48 Hrs.” Paramount gave me some five-picture deal, and at the time it was crazy. I think it was $15 million, and that was like I was set for life. So I’ve never been competitive. I knew I was going to be famous, but all I wanted to do creatively was meet Richard Pryor and be funny. I was on a plane coming from Georgia, and Richard Pryor was on the plane. That’s when I first met him, and I gave him my cassette of my first album, and I sat two, three rows on the other side, and I was watching the back of his head, and he was laughing. I could have died right there.
Did you ever see a performer that made you think, Whoa, I have to wrap my head around this? What do you mean?
Was there ever anybody that made you feel like, I’ve got to understand what this person’s doing? Oh, you mean someone that came after me and went to the next level, and I was like, Whoa? No, never. I haven’t witnessed the next level. The ceiling of the whole art form, standup comedy, that’s Richard. And the ceiling for movies, for me, is Chaplin. I haven’t seen anyone come along that was better than Chaplin.
I always wondered if Elvis was the influence behind some of the onstage stuff you wore when you were doing standup. Elvis had a huge influence on me: the leather suits; in “Raw,” I come out, I have a scarf. I was rolling like Elvis, too. I didn’t have the Memphis Mafia, but I had my little crew of dudes. And the same way you see me dressed in “Delirious” and in “Raw,” I used to dress like that on the streets. I was totally in my Elvis trip. And when I got older, it was like, oh, my God, Elvis wasn’t cool at all. Elvis was going through some [expletive]. Now, Michael Jackson, that whole red jacket thing in “Thriller”: “Thriller” is after “Delirious” when I owned the red suit. I’m not saying he was influenced, but I had on the red jacket before. [Laughs.]
Elvis, Michael Jackson, these guys achieved the apex of fame. Prince is another like that. And there was a period when you were at that level. Yeah, I went through all of that.
Those guys all came to tragic ends. Do you understand the pitfalls that present themselves at that level of fame? Those guys are all cautionary tales for me. I don’t drink. I smoked a joint for the first time when I was 30 years old — the extent of drugs is some weed. I remember I was 19, I went to the Blues Bar. It was me, Belushi and Robin Williams. They start doing coke, and I was like, “No, I’m cool.” I wasn’t taking some moral stance. I just wasn’t interested in it. To not have the desire or the curiosity, I’d say that’s providence. God was looking over me in that moment. When you get famous really young, especially a Black artist, it’s like living in a minefield. Any moment something could happen that can undo everything. It was like, all of this stuff is going on, and I’m totally oblivious. Now, at this age, I can look back and be like, “Wow, I came through a minefield for 35 years.” How do you make it through a minefield for 35, 40 years? Something has to be looking over you.
Why did you say especially for Black artists? This business, it’s not set up for a Black artist. It was a new thing: I’m doing this stuff that no one’s ever done, and it’s in a business that’s not set up for me. It’s set up for some white dude. So you don’t have people watching your back, and you don’t have support groups. You’re just kind of in it. You don’t have anybody you can go to and say, “Hey, what about this?”
Wait, you tried pot for the first time when you were 30? Yeah. It was in this recording studio, and everybody had left, and there was a joint there. A friend of mine, David, and his wife, Donna, were there — and I took a hit on a joint. There were some Jelly Belly jelly beans, those gourmet jelly beans, and I remember taking the jelly beans and eating one and trying to guess with my eyes closed which flavor it was, and we were just screaming with laughter.
You know, I just rewatched “Bowfinger,” which, for my money, is your best performance. Better than “The Nutty Professor”?
I like “Bowfinger” more. For me there’s no comparison. I like “Bowfinger,” but “Nutty Professor” — that stuff is real. Those makeups that Rick Baker did, that turn you into another person and there’s no sign of me: I could walk in a room, and a person wouldn’t even know it was me. Let’s put it this way: I like “Bowfinger,” but I could think of 20 other actors that could have played that role. I can’t think of another person that could do “Nutty Professor.”
In “Bowfinger,” you did multiple roles, too. A lot of people could do that.
But the question I have, it’s to do with the challenge of the material. Watching “Bowfinger,” you’re doing the nerdy character, then you’re doing the action-film character, and you’re playing opposite Steve Martin. It seemed as if that role presented a particular challenge — What do you mean by “challenge”?
The challenge of playing the different roles, and playing them credibly, and the tonal challenge of doing comedy that’s also a satire, and the competitive challenge of acting opposite another comedy legend like Steve Martin. I don’t gravitate toward things that I think would be challenging. I want to do something I know works and something that I know I can be funny doing.
Why are you more interested in the thing that you know is going to work? Because first and foremost I’m trying to be funny for my audience. You want to do stuff that you know is going to be funny for them. I still do all different types of things even though I don’t want to be challenged. What’s challenging is when you’re in a movie and the movie ain’t [expletive]. That’s challenging: when you’re sitting in the screening room and you see the first print of “Pluto Nash.” I remember the first time we watched “Pluto Nash,” I had my son Myles with me. He was probably about 8. Myles is sitting there with me, and the movie’s all soft. Then at the end, it goes silent, and my little baby son goes, “Corny.” That was challenging. [Laughs.] Even the baby knows it’s corny.
So I just saw “Axel F.” What made you want to go back to that franchise? We’ve been trying to develop another “Beverly Hills Cop” since ’96. The one we did in ’94, I didn’t think the movie came out good. There’s been 10 different scripts and a bunch of different producers, and we just tried for years and years, and it wouldn’t come together until we got Jerry [Bruckheimer] back involved, the original producer. Jerry, he understood it the most because it’s his movie, and it all came together.
What were the difficulties before Jerry came along? If you look at the third “Beverly Hills Cop,” it didn’t have the emotional hook that the other ones have. Axel has to be fueled by one of his friends or somebody close to him in danger or something; the movie needs a great villain. And Jerry brought all the elements back to it. You know, this whole action-comedy genre kind of starts with “Beverly Hills Cop.” Before “Beverly Hills Cop,” the cops were serious. It was no comedy with the cops. “Beverly Hills Cop” kind of pioneered that, and then all those movies that came out afterwards, “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard,” all the cops then are being funny and having one-liners and yippee ki-yay [expletive]. All that kind of starts after “Beverly Hills Cop.”
I was just reading this Steve Martin book [“Number One Is Walking”], and in it he said he doesn’t want to make movies anymore. He had to make 40 movies to get five good ones, and he lost his juice for it. Does that resonate for you? I have more than five good ones, though. I feel like I have maybe five or six bad ones. You know, “Pluto Nash” might be the only [expletive] movie. I have a couple of movies that are soft, and movies that are just OK. But no flops. I used to call movies flops. There’s no such thing as a flop. Because I’ve been in this business long enough to know that when I got into this business, there was no Black Hollywood, and there was just, you know, a handful of Black people that were working in films. Just to get in a movie is an accomplishment.
And the joy has never diminished? I never had joy.
Really? The process of making a movie, it’s work. The actual being in a scene, that’s a small part of the day. I love that — when we’re on the set and you feel it clicking. But “hurry up and wait”: That’s the movie business, and it is not fun.
You referred to providence earlier in the conversation. And also you said somebody’s looking out for me. Do you ever wonder why you? I asked that question to Richard Pryor. He said, “You can’t think like that, Eddie.” He said, “Look at that bum over there” — there was a bum walking down the street — “he’s wondering why him.” Just being here, the chances of being born — I can’t question. I have to go: “This is all the way it’s supposed to be. This is the way God planned it.”
Murphy and I spoke again a few weeks later.
I think I first got in touch with your publicist about trying to interview you something like four years ago. We got close, and then it fell apart. Then this past February, I got in touch again, and your publicist was like, It might work out. He finally wrote me back and said, OK, Eddie is up for this, and put in quotation marks, which I assume meant it came from you, “as long as there are no cheap shots.” What kind of cheap shot would you be worried about? I wasn’t worried about anything. I say that before I do any interview. “No cheap shots.” It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing that I say. [Murphy later called me to clarify that he has been using “no cheap shots” since he heard the line in a scene from “Rocky” and also that he doesn’t actually spend any time worrying about any cheap shots he has received.]
Do you feel as if you’ve taken cheap shots from the press over the years? Back in the old days, they used to be relentless on me, and a lot of it was racist stuff. It was the ’80s and just a whole different world.
Can you remember any examples? In what way was it racist? Just think about it: Ronald Reagan was the president, and it was that America. You would do interviews, and you’re like: “I didn’t say that. I don’t talk that way.” They would be writing it in this weird ghetto — I used to have weird [expletive] that would go on. Then I got really popular, and there was this negative backlash that comes with it. It’s like, I was the only one out there. I’m this young, rich, Black one. Everybody wasn’t happy about that in 1983. Even Black folks. You’d get cheap shots from your people.
Did it hurt? You know, I remember when “Nutty Professor” came out — it’s not even that long ago that I got a cheap shot from my people. I remember Ebony magazine, instead of talking about the movie and my performance and all that, they said maybe there will come a day when a Black man can play a professor and he doesn’t have to be nutty. I was like, “What the [expletive]?” That’s the review of my movie? I play all these different characters, and that’s what you say about me? Yeah, that hurt my feelings. When David Spade said that [expletive] about my career on “S.N.L.,” it was like: “Yo, it’s in-house! I’m one of the family, and you’re [expletive] with me like that?” It hurt my feelings like that, yeah.
He made some comment about a couple of movies of yours flopping? No, no, no, no, no, no. One movie. “Vampire in Brooklyn.” It came out and had flopped. He showed a picture of me, and he said, “Hey, everybody, catch a falling star.” It was like: Wait, hold on. This is “Saturday Night Live.” I’m the biggest thing that ever came off that show. The show would have been off the air if I didn’t go back on the show, and now you got somebody from the cast making a crack about my career? And I know that he can’t just say that. A joke has to go through these channels. So the producers thought it was OK to say that. And all the people that have been on that show, you’ve never heard nobody make no joke about anybody’s career. Most people that get off that show, they don’t go on and have these amazing careers. It was personal. It was like, “Yo, how could you do that?” My career? Really? A joke about my career? So I thought that was a cheap shot. And it was kind of, I thought — I felt it was racist.
Then you stayed away from the show for a long time. Thirty years. In the long run, it’s all good. Worked out great. I’m cool with David Spade. Cool with Lorne Michaels. I went back to “S.N.L.” I’m cool with everybody. It’s all love.
I had also asked you a question about how you think about your relationship with your audience. You said you approach it from the perspective of, You’re going to make what you think is funny, and hopefully the audience likes it. You also said that you’re looking to do projects that you’re confident will succeed. But don’t you have to think about the audience’s needs in order to have a sense if something is going to work or not? How could you think about the audience’s needs? Eight billion people on the planet. They don’t know — that’s a better way of putting it: The audience has no clue what’s funny. You’ve got to show them what’s funny. They don’t know. And if something is funny to me — I’ve never had anything that made me laugh that then when I said it to an audience, the audience just sat there and looked at me. If I think it’s funny, it’s always funny.
Why can’t you get “Soul, Soul, Soul” made then? You think it’s funny. Probably other people will. I’ve almost made “Soul, Soul, Soul” a bunch of times. But I’ll get right up to it and then be like, “This is too self-indulgent, nobody’s going to go see this.” That’s the way it’s been going for 30 years almost. I just recently had that experience with Donald Glover. I showed him that little clip, the “Soul, Soul, Soul” thing, and he was like: “Yo, you got to make this movie. How do we make this movie?”
How many people have seen that trailer? Not a lot of people. It’s just like an inside thing.
Surely you have earned the right to make a self-indulgent project. Why not just do it? Because it’s so much work. That’s been the deterrent. But I tell you, one day I’ll do it.
You also said that an ideal day is a day where you basically do nothing. But I know you’re an intellectually curious guy. You have a sharp mind. You’re a sensitive artist who feels things deeply. So what’s interesting to you in the wider world? Science? Climate change? Politics? Oh, you know, I’ll turn on CNN. I’ll have, like, a week where I’ll get up on everything, and then I’ll turn it off and get totally detached. If you watch that every day, you go crazy, and you can’t be in the moment. You can’t be in the present moment when you’re off doing that and you’re off on the computer. This is the only moment that’s real. Everything else — there is no future; tomorrow never comes. All you ever have is this moment. I’m trying to be in this moment.
Do you spend any time on the internet? I don’t go on the internet. I’ll watch YouTube. I don’t just go random on it. Like, you know who Peg Leg Bates is?
Who’s Peg Leg Bates? [Laughs.] Oh, I’m glad you don’t know. You ever heard the expression taking your lemons and turning them into lemonade? Peg Leg Bates is the personification of that. Peg Leg Bates is a one-legged tap dancer from the ’40s, I think. Just Google after you finish. He lost his leg and he was undeterred, went out there, and he became a legend.
As we were talking about Peg Leg Bates, I got a message from my editor with some breaking news.
Eddie, this is going to be old news by the time this runs but Trump was just found guilty in the hush-money case. No! Guilty. Wow. I did not think that was going to happen.
All counts. And how about this? I don’t think it’s going to affect the election at all.
You don’t think so? No. We’ve never seen anything like this. This is some whole other thing. Wow, they found him guilty.
Do you have time for a couple more? I’m cool, man.
I appreciate it. [Expletive] Trump.
Oh, here’s a good one: There’s an interview that you did with Spike Lee in Spin magazine from the early ’90s. In there you say that you believe the government bugged your house. Why did you believe that? We found a little microphone in my house, in my bedroom. Did I say the government? Somebody put a microphone in there.
And why would they have done that? Who knows? In the ’80s, all they heard in my room was serious [expletive] going on. They would listen to the bug saying, “God damn, you be doing some serious [expletive].”
Hard to segue from that! Let me go here: I heard Kevin Hart tell a story on Howard Stern’s show. He talked about a dinner that, I think, Dave Chappelle organized. It was Kevin Hart, you, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Chappelle. And in Hart’s recollection, it’s this lovely moment where you’re all sharing stories, but really it was kind of about showing respect for you. Do you remember that? Yeah, but I don’t remember being the focal point.
But he really put it in terms of, you laid down the path for those guys. Do you understand what you mean to comedians like Kevin Hart and Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock and Chris Tucker? Well, I didn’t lay down a path. They took their own path. The comic used to be the sidekick, the comic was the opening act, and I changed it to where the comic can be the main attraction. They thought of comics one way, and it was like, no, a comic could sell out the arena, and a comic could be in hundred-million-dollar movies. All of that changed. And with Black actors, it was, like, the Black guy could be the star of the movie, and it doesn’t have to be a Black exploitation movie. It could be a movie that’s accessible to everyone all around the world.
One of the other things that stuck with me from our first conversation was that you described getting to do what you do for a living as a blessing. I was thinking about that in the context of how you also said that you knew you were going to be famous. When did you stop taking success for granted? I knew it was a blessing from the beginning.
So you didn’t take it for granted? I took how fast everything was moving for granted. Like, I guess this happens for everybody; this is what happens when you get famous. So I took all of that for granted but I was never like, “I’m the [expletive].” There’s no higher blessing: You make people laugh, that’s more than anything. That’s more than making them dance, making them feel drama. To look around and see that all the good things that came in my life all came from making somebody laugh? That’s a beautiful feeling, man.
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.
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