Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
Eddie Murphy is celebrating 50 years in show business with an inside look at his storied career. The comedy legend goes under the microscope for the Netflix documentary Being Eddie, set to begin streaming Nov. 12. Director Angus Wall’s film chronicles Murphy’s path from a young stand-up to a teenage castmember of Saturday Night Live to the movie star known for Beverly Hills Cop, The Nutty Professor and Shrek. The documentary features interviews with Murphy, Jamie Foxx, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Tracee Ellis Ross, Chris Rock and many others. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote the film, the star opens up about putting previous beefs behind him. That includes patching things up with director John Landis — who appears in the doc — and also with the SNL team for his 2019 return as host. Murphy reveals the colorful way he envisions accepting a potential honorary Oscar and teases the forthcoming reboot that he’s most excited to tackle — if the finished script ever arrives. Given that you’re fairly private, what made you decide to do Being Eddie, and were there off-limits topics or guidelines you wanted to set? There were no guidelines. It wasn’t going to be this type of documentary. [When] it started out, I was going to do stand-up comedy again. In 2011, I stopped making movies for about six years. When I got off the couch, I was like, “Let’s do Dolemite [Is My Name], and go back to Saturday Night Live, and do stand-up.” We were going to do this documentary just to show what it’s like to put a [stand-up] show together. Then COVID hit, and everything shut down. Afterwards, I was like, “I’m not sure if I want to do stand-up,” because I was paranoid about COVID. We worked on this thing for five, six years, and now, coincidentally, it’s my 50th year in show-business — a milestone for anybody in any business. The documentary teases your potential return to stand-up after all these decades. Are you getting close to doing a special or a tour? I’m open to the idea of doing stand-up again. I got to be having fun for it to work, so if it hits me like that, I’ll go right up there and do it. In the film, you talk about your stand-up shows having felt heavily scrutinized once you were famous. Given the debate in recent years about cancel culture, how do you feel about the stand-up landscape? I can’t think of a comedian that said a joke that made them get canceled. I feel like that whole canceled thing was just a moment in time where people were like, “Comics have to be careful what they say.” If you go into clubs, the comics are talking crazier than ever. They say whatever the fuck they want to say. It’s a generation that’s coming up now that’s defiant about that whole cancel culture shit: “Fuck that cancel culture shit. Let the chips fall where they may.” If I ever did it again, I would say what I wanted to say and do whatever I wanted to do. I’m not even thinking about getting canceled at 64, after 50 years in the business. When I worked at Playboy, one of our most popular interviews from over the years was yours [from 1990], where you discussed tensions with John Landis. Given that he’s in the film, have you two put any disagreements in the past? That heat that I had with John Landis 35, 40 years ago, that’s so long ago. I love John, and he directed two of the best movies of my career — Trading Places and Coming to America. For years, we’ve had no heat whatsoever. We even did a movie after that shit. John Landis directed Beverly Hills Cop III. The movie sucked, but we were buddies after. (Laughs.) You talk about not having won an Oscar, and there are a lot of people who feel you should have won for Dreamgirls. It bothers me when talented comedians have to leave comedy to get critical recognition. I never went like, “They didn’t take me seriously because I’m a comedian.” I don’t even think like that. There are things that I’ve done that nobody else could do. Nobody else could do Nutty Professor. With Jim Carrey, nobody else could do The Grinch. To me, the performance in The Grinch is just as amazing as Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. I know comedians that blow dudes off the stage that have got Oscars. Among your projects in the works is a potential reunion with your Dreamgirls director Bill Condon for a George Clinton movie. Is awards recognition still on your mind? What’s on my mind is just doing good stuff and only doing stuff that I’m going to have fun doing. I don’t think about winning trophies. I got a bunch of trophies. I got everything but an Oscar, and I’m not like, “This is going to get the Oscar.” The fact of the matter is, if I never win an Oscar, eventually they’ll give me one of those honorary Oscars when I’m 90 years old. If they made me wait that long, I’m going to wear a sky blue tuxedo, and when they give me the Oscar, I’m going to urinate on myself while I’m giving a speech. (As an old man:) “This is a wonderful moment here.” See all the piss coming down, and they’re going to play the music to make me stop pissing, and it’s just going to make me piss even more. I’m just going to piss all down. They have to come take me off the stage. If they made me wait to 90, that’s what I’m going to do. So they got to give me one. Otherwise, the whole thing has no credibility. I’m sure you have younger fans who may know you best for Shrek, and now we have Zendaya joining for Shrek 5. How has it been to revisit Donkey? I’ve always said I would do Shrek forever. Donkey is a great character to play. I love the whole cast. So I was excited when it was like, “Hey, they’re doing another one,” and they want to do a Donkey one, too. I’m totally into it. I come in too hot, every vocal session. You mention in the documentary that it takes a lot out of you. You have a headache after a Shrek session. The donkey has a lot of singing. You’re on 10, and you’re doing it over and over again. The great thing, though, is it’s appreciated. Everybody loves the movie. Nothing’s worse than working really hard on something, and doing makeup and sweat and all this shit, and then you put it out, and they’d be like, “Two thumbs down.” You go, “I was in the makeup chair for 50 hours!” (Laughs.) I know you’ve been hoping to revive the Pink Panther franchise. Have you spoken to your Bowfinger co-star Steve Martin for advice on that? No, but I’m looking forward to putting my spin on it. See, I associate Pink Panther with Peter Sellers. Of course. He’s the original Pink Panther, and it turned into this cool thing. Other comic actors have played it, and it’d be cool to put a new spin on it. There’s been a few movies in my career where it was like, “OK, I’m doing this movie because no Black person has ever done a movie like this.” It was like, a Black Dr. Dolittle? So I had to do this movie. [And] they had no Black Inspector Clouseau. That’s like a Black James Bond to me. I’m just looking forward to going into this area that nobody else Black had been in before. Are we getting close to production on that? I’m waiting on the script. (To a nearby associate:) You said that script was coming in October, and it’s Nov. 3. What happened to Pink Panther? (Back to the interview:) You heard it? She said it’s really close. (To his associate:) Where’s Mad, Mad World, too? You said that was coming in October. What’s that one? A reboot [of 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World]. This has been in development for, shit, almost 15 years. They can never get the script right. But right now, we got the two writers that wrote The Pickup, and they wrote the Donkey [spinoff movie] — these writers are super hot and super smart — and supposedly they’re really close on A Mad, Mad World. I’m cautiously optimistic because we’ve been in development for so long. That’s the pet project. That’s the one I want to do more than anything. We see your home’s retractable roof in the documentary. Do you have to worry about bird shit? Just recently, we had some shit on the carpet [under] the roof. Every now and then, a bird will fly in the house. (Laughs.) Other than that, the roof is no problem. Every now and then, some shit on the carpet. Somebody come in the room and say, “There’s a bird in the living room.” Oh, shit. (Laughs.)
