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stock or investment strategy. Learn more

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at schwab.com/thematicinvesting. From

0:38

the New York Times, this is the interview.

0:40

I'm David Marchese. Eddie

0:44

Murphy has been so famous for

0:46

so long that it can be easy to

0:48

take for granted or just plain overlook

0:51

how game-changing a figure he actually is.

0:54

As a stand-up, he was a total rock star.

0:57

Eddie Murphy Raw from 1987 is

0:59

the highest grossing stand-up comedy

1:01

film ever released. And

1:04

he brought that sheer comedic firepower to TV,

1:06

too. At the risk of overstating

1:08

it, and I don't think I am, he

1:10

can take pretty much sole credit for rescuing Saturday

1:12

Night Live from its early 80s slump. But

1:15

he made his greatest mark in movies, where he

1:17

became one of the biggest stars of all time. He

1:20

reached new heights of popularity and bankability,

1:22

especially for a comedian and especially for

1:25

a black actor. He pioneered

1:27

the action-comedy genre with movies like Beverly Hills Cop

1:29

and 48 Hours. And

1:31

later he made classics out of family-friendly films,

1:33

too, like The Nutty Professor and Shrek movies.

1:37

Simply put, there is American pop culture

1:39

before Eddie Murphy and American

1:41

pop culture after Eddie Murphy. And

1:44

now he's returning to the character that sent

1:46

his career to Overdrive with Beverly Hills Cop

1:49

Axel F. It comes 40

1:51

years after the first film in the series,

1:53

and Murphy is back as the wisecracking detective

1:55

Axel Foley. In recent

1:57

years, Murphy has been a somewhat remote

2:00

an enigmatic off-screen presence.

2:03

But as I found out over the course of

2:05

our two conversations, now is a

2:07

good moment for Murphy to reflect on what

2:09

he's accomplished, spin some Hollywood stories, explain

2:11

why stand-up doesn't appeal to him anymore, and

2:14

reveal the dream project he's never been able to get

2:16

off the ground. Here's my

2:18

conversation with Eddie Murphy. And

2:21

just a heads up here, big surprise, this

2:23

episode has some pretty salty language

2:25

in it. You've been around working

2:27

professionally for, it's got to be

2:30

close to 50 years, if

2:33

you include starting at stand-up.

2:37

And I think, you know, because you've been

2:39

around for so long and been successful for

2:41

so long, people might take for granted just

2:45

sort of how unprecedented your success

2:47

was. Like, when

2:49

all that was happening, and things were

2:52

skyrocketing, like around the time of

2:54

the first Beverly Hills Cop, which I guess after 48 hours, did

2:58

you feel like you as a

3:00

comedian, as a movie star, as

3:03

a black movie star, understood

3:06

what it was about you specifically that

3:09

met the moment so perfectly? No,

3:12

and not even in

3:14

retrospect, I'm 22 when

3:18

I had to do Beverly Hills Cop. And

3:20

I'm 20 years old when I started doing 48 hours.

3:23

So now I look back on those

3:25

times and I trip about how young I was.

3:27

But back then, I kind of took

3:29

it for granted. This is just stuff that was happening. One

3:33

thing had led to another, and I wound up

3:35

on a movie set, and I just went

3:39

with it. And then when

3:41

stuff worked and became hit movies,

3:43

I was like, okay, yeah, that's what it's supposed to

3:45

be, right? And I

3:47

realized now, I was like, wow, that was a

3:49

trip that it came together

3:51

like that. Back then, I guess

3:53

I kind of took it for granted. What

3:56

do you think it meant for you for stuff

3:58

to be blowing up? up the way

4:00

it did. Like you said you took it for granted,

4:02

which, you know, in retrospect, like, that's a crazy, like,

4:05

you're becoming the biggest movie star in the world, the

4:07

biggest comedian. Like, this seems like it's going out. It

4:09

should like, it seems as if that would be a

4:12

something that could kind of be hard for

4:14

someone to reconcile with who they are

4:16

in some ways, because even at that age, you're still figuring

4:18

out who you are, you know, but I knew I started

4:21

maybe around 1314. I

4:25

started saying that I was going to be famous,

4:28

you know, I tell my mother when I'm famous, yada

4:30

yada, and I was always, so when

4:32

I got famous, it was like, I

4:34

told you I was going to be famous. Now I

4:36

didn't know how big it was going to get. I

4:38

knew I was going to get famous. I was having,

4:40

you know, like these famous people that I grew up

4:43

watching on television, you know, wanting

4:46

to have a meal with me. After

4:49

48 hours, Marlon Brando calls my agent

4:52

and wants to meet me. And I go

4:54

to Marlon Brando's house and have dinner with

4:56

Marlon Brando. And I was, you know, I

4:58

was like, okay, I guess that's what happens.

5:00

You know, now, at this

5:02

age, I look back and go, wow, that's

5:05

fucking crazy. The whole idea that, you know,

5:07

your first movie, the greatest actor of all

5:09

times, wants to have dinner with you. I went

5:11

and hung out with him a few times, you

5:13

know, but back then I just thought, oh, that's the

5:15

way it is. You make a movie and Marlon

5:17

Brando calls. Do you remember that dinner?

5:19

He's he? I mean, I'm fascinated by Marlon

5:22

Brando. I went to the very first time

5:24

we were supposed to meet was at the

5:26

L'Hare M'Tage in Los Angeles.

5:29

He came to the hotel and we had

5:31

dinner at the, up

5:33

the top place at the restaurant

5:35

on the top. Then the second time was

5:37

at his house and he came and

5:39

picked me up at the hotel. I thought that it

5:42

was at eight o'clock. It was a time mix up.

5:44

And I came down like a half hour late and

5:46

he was waiting for me in the car and Brando

5:48

was sitting waiting for me. We

5:51

went to his house on Mulholland and

5:54

I was just going on and on about the Godfather and

5:57

he didn't even want to talk about the guy. He was

5:59

like, yeah. He was like,

6:02

not just a godfather, acting. He

6:05

was like, acting is bullshit, everybody

6:07

can act and so and so. This

6:10

is how long ago this was. He was going,

6:12

and that kid, I can't

6:14

stand that kid with the gun. And I was

6:16

like, what kid with the gun? He's on the

6:18

poster, he's got the gun. That

6:21

was like, Clint Eastwood? Yeah, that guy. Clint was

6:23

like, that's how long ago it was. He was

6:25

calling Clint Eastwood that kid. Clint

6:28

Eastwood was 93 years old now. That's

6:31

how long ago it was. Are there

6:34

folks that you see coming up

6:36

and you think, I just want to, I'm curious about

6:38

this person. Yeah, I'm around Brando's

6:40

age like he was when he wanted me. Is

6:42

there some 20 year old that's on the

6:45

scene that I'm like calling my agent going,

6:47

oh, absolutely not.

6:51

Absolutely not. I'm so out of touch. I used

6:53

to be so hip, I used to know who

6:55

everybody was. And now there's just so much stuff.

6:58

I asked my wife, who's this person? And be

7:00

like, oh, that song's not the biggest thing in

7:02

the world. I don't even know

7:04

what's going on. You know,

7:06

I just watched, there's

7:08

a really good conversation with you

7:11

and Jerry Seinfeld. It was for some

7:13

Netflix event. And I think

7:15

in that, you describe yourself as, like

7:18

fundamentally, you think of yourself as

7:20

a comedian. And fundamentally,

7:22

me personally, think I think of myself

7:24

as a comedian. I said that. Yeah,

7:26

yeah. Does that sound wrong? Yeah,

7:28

because I don't see my, think of myself as

7:30

a comedian at all. I think myself

7:32

is. Oh really? Yeah, that's

7:34

one aspect of who I

7:37

am, that I'm a comedian. But

7:40

I see myself as an

7:43

artist. I'm a

7:46

super sensitive artist and

7:48

I can dabble, I can

7:50

express myself creatively in

7:52

a bunch of different ways. Like

7:55

I play a musician and I

7:57

write screenplays and, you know. and

7:59

I sing and I'm funny and

8:01

I just do a bunch of

8:03

stuff. I don't just

8:06

go, oh, I'm a comedian. A comedian is

8:08

one part of it. What

8:10

do you mean when you say you describe yourself

8:12

as a super sensitive artist? Like

8:15

I could pick up energy. I

8:18

can tell if somebody's got something

8:20

going on under their skin while I'm talking to

8:23

them, I could feel that

8:26

I'm super sensitive. If

8:28

I walk in a room, I could tell who's getting

8:31

ready to come over here and say something.

8:33

Who's trying to act like they don't care

8:35

that I'm there. I feel all

8:38

of that shit. That's why I

8:40

hate going to award shows. The

8:42

most horrible energy in the world is

8:45

a room full of famous people going

8:47

through their whole famous thing and

8:50

who's the most famous and who's cool

8:53

and all of that energy going on and

8:56

everybody acting and I

8:58

hate that feeling. Yeah.

9:03

Just to go back to what I

9:05

was trying to lead towards with the Seinfeld

9:07

thing, where I understand fundamentally you're an artist

9:09

and not a comedian, but I think the

9:11

context was like, he was

9:13

nudging you and the moderator was nudging you,

9:16

when are you going to do stand up? Which I think people ask

9:18

you all the time, when are you going to go back to do

9:20

stand up? That's a comic, I'm not a comic. I

9:23

still do funny things and I write funny

9:25

stuff, but I haven't been a comic since

9:27

I was 27. Is

9:30

that something that's still appealing to you in any

9:32

fashion? All

9:35

this whole different world now.

9:38

I used to have little periods where I'd be like, I'm going to

9:40

do it again. And then I'm like, why? Why

9:42

am I going to do it? The closest I got to

9:45

doing it again was right before the

9:47

pandemic. I actually was like, I'm going to do stand

9:49

up again. Cause I had did Saturday Night Live and

9:51

I was like, let me

9:53

go back in. And that's what I did. Now

9:55

let me go do one stand up special and

9:58

bring it all full circle. Then

10:00

the pandemic hit, and

10:03

we were, you know, stuck in a

10:05

house for two years. And I wasn't

10:07

going, oh, when I get out of here, I want to just

10:09

stand up again. It was like, eh, mm,

10:11

and now it's, here's

10:14

a good analogy. It's like somebody

10:16

that was in the military, you know, and

10:18

they were on the front line in Vietnam

10:20

or whatever, and they would got all these

10:23

medals because they did all this amazing stuff,

10:25

but then they wolfed up and they became

10:27

like a general in the army.

10:29

So it's like going to the general and saying,

10:32

hey, you ever think about going back

10:34

to the front line? But

10:37

have Bullies Whiz Bash a year again? It's like,

10:40

no, it's much easier just

10:43

doing this. Do

10:46

you have a dream project? Like if you could

10:48

snap your fingers and knew it was going

10:50

to happen, what is the movie that Eddie

10:53

Murphy would want to make? Oh,

10:55

gee, I don't know. I don't have like

10:57

a dream project. I

11:00

don't have something that was sitting around for years. Well,

11:03

actually I do have things like that, but

11:06

they're not, I don't

11:09

know if they would ever get made.

11:11

They're like things, crazy ideas that I

11:13

had. This

11:18

one thing I've been threatening to do through

11:21

maybe 20 years called Soul, Soul, Soul.

11:23

It's just like this fake

11:26

documentary that I

11:28

love and everybody, whenever I show people the material on

11:31

it, I'll show people the characters. We shot like this

11:33

fake trailer and everything. They were like, hey, when are

11:35

you going to make this movie? And I'm like, I

11:37

don't know. I want to make it,

11:39

but I just can't figure out how to do it.

11:43

What would the fake documentary be about? It's

11:45

about this guy who, it's

11:48

kind of like Zellig kind of

11:50

thing about it. It's this guy who's part

11:53

of the rock and roll and R&B thing

11:55

back in the sixties and

11:58

did all the most and the biggest. and

12:00

worked with everybody, you know? And we never

12:02

heard of him, but now all those great

12:04

moments in rock and roll, and he's attached

12:07

to all of these things. He says, bitter

12:09

artists. And, yeah.

12:14

Where's my phone? Is

12:17

my, oh. Okay, I'm

12:19

gonna break in here to explain what exactly is

12:21

going on. So Eddie pulls out his phone and

12:23

starts looking for something on it. Where is it?

12:27

We're so, so, so. And

12:30

then for the next three and a

12:32

half minutes, Eddie Murphy holds the phone

12:34

up to his computer camera and shows

12:36

me this trailer for a movie that

12:38

doesn't exist. Okay,

12:43

so. He

12:46

has 200 gold records, sold 35, he

12:49

has 35 Grammys, six lifetime achievement awards for

12:51

showing me a video. He's been

12:54

inducted into the Soul Music Hall of Fame twice.

12:57

The world knows him by a single, a

13:00

double name. Murray

13:02

Murray. If you

13:04

got a record player, you know Murray Murray. I

13:08

can sing before I can talk. If you read the script, it's

13:10

easy. And the humor here, most of it is delivered

13:12

in documentary style talking head confessionals,

13:14

and it's classic Eddie Murphy. I

13:17

remember for a girl I had in the course with, oh, what was

13:19

that? It was a little woman named

13:22

Daisy. And how old were you? Oh, shit.

13:24

I was nine and she was 37. I

13:28

have a dream that one day.

13:30

I coined the phrase, I have a

13:32

dream before Martin Luther King. I

13:35

have a dream. I expected, going to be

13:37

the name of an app, might have a dream. He

13:39

liked the way that flow with a good hook. Then

13:41

he took that and run with it, you know what

13:43

I mean? How

13:46

much of this have you made? I guess almost

13:49

over. I can't cry no more. That was

13:51

my soul. I keep watching. He contracted Soulitis.

13:54

Soulitis. I can

13:56

practice Soulitis, yes. And it come from

13:58

saying soul for too long. My doctor told me

14:00

if I sang another note, I could die. He

14:03

told me I'm one note away from that. It's

14:05

the worst case of Soul Laddis. That's how James

14:07

Randat Soul Laddis. Oldest rhythm too. You see, it

14:09

was a playing crash. Soul Laddis. You

14:13

get the idea. And like I said,

14:16

this went on for a while. So

14:18

let's skip to the end and get

14:20

back to the interview. Soul, Soul, Soul,

14:22

the Marie Murray story. Pity

14:24

Pat, Pity Pat, Pity Pat, Pity Pat, Pity

14:26

Pat, Pity Pat. Yeah,

14:30

so that's probably about

14:33

10 years old now.

14:36

Wow. I'd see that movie.

14:38

Yeah, but we haven't been, I've almost, I'm telling

14:41

you, I almost made this movie a bunch of

14:43

times. I've been right to where I was going

14:45

to make it. And then I said, no, not

14:47

right now. I feel like it's so self-indulgent. And

14:49

I feel like only a few people would go

14:51

see it, but they would laugh so fucking hard.

14:57

When you're home and not working on

14:59

stuff, not making music or not writing,

15:01

what's an ideal day for you? Nothing,

15:03

I like to do nothing. I like a day

15:05

where there's nothing and my kids,

15:08

I could hear my kids, and wherever

15:10

they at, it's just quiet.

15:14

I sit around and play guitar. The

15:16

ideal day for me is nothing. Was

15:20

it always like that? Yeah, when

15:22

I was a little boy, when we

15:24

were getting trouble, the punishment for my

15:26

brothers was that they

15:29

couldn't go outside. And when

15:31

I got in trouble, the punishment was I couldn't

15:33

watch TV. I could go

15:35

outside, but instead I would be sitting in the

15:37

house crying, because I couldn't watch TV. I

15:39

said, but I loved to watch TV. My

15:41

whole life was a TV watcher, cut

15:44

school and take the blanket

15:46

and put it over the dining room table and

15:49

take the TV and put it under the table and

15:52

have a little tent under there and have my

15:54

little junk food and just watch TV. It's

15:56

always been a homebody. What

15:59

do you watch? Now anything I'm

16:01

ashamed to say what I stuff that watch now tell

16:04

me This it's not

16:06

hip stuff You

16:12

know I watch every now I'm not ashamed to say it

16:14

I watch every night at six

16:17

o'clock right dinner watch

16:19

Steve Harvey and Family Feud

16:23

and on Tuesdays I watch the

16:26

math singer We

16:30

do my wife and I we watch all

16:32

those shows the singing competitions and that kind

16:34

of stuff I'll be

16:37

like now even suppose you watching no shit like

16:39

this Then you be you

16:41

say I wonder who that turtle is. I should pull you in

16:43

you be one Wonder

16:45

who it is Last

16:47

year I watched all

16:50

of the Golden Bachelor Hey,

16:56

they broke up to you know, they broke up I know

16:58

what kind of just recently Three

17:00

months later. I watched this, you know, I was like,

17:03

this is so nice They found love in the second

17:05

part of their life and this is a nice show

17:08

Bravo, then if I broke up

17:10

three months later the same old

17:12

shit with I'm I'm thinking of

17:14

this because it's

17:17

related to When

17:20

you described yourself as sensitive, you know,

17:22

I remember this is probably I'm a

17:24

very sensitive. What do you watch Family

17:26

Feud? That's

17:30

how sensitive you are. Yes, you

17:32

know, I'm a very sensitive artist. Really? So what do you

17:34

watch? Family Feud

17:44

Wait, let me compose myself. Okay. Yes, so you're

17:46

sensitive artist and I was thinking about just the

17:48

other day It popped into

17:50

my mind how I was around the

17:53

time of the Saturday Night Live 40th

17:55

anniversary show and I don't know if you probably

17:57

you don't see my guy who was on Twitter,

17:59

but Norm McDonald Donald posted this big

18:01

story about how they were trying to get you

18:03

to be on a celebrity Jeopardy sketch for the

18:06

40th anniversary show. You didn't want to do it.

18:08

But the thing he said that was interesting to

18:10

me or most interesting was, you know, it's like

18:12

everyone knew it would kill.

18:15

But you know, for whatever reason, you didn't want

18:17

to do it. And the thing that that norm then said

18:19

was, Eddie doesn't need the

18:22

laughs the way that

18:24

the rest of us need the laughs. What

18:27

is your relationship to the audience? Do

18:29

you feel like you need something from

18:31

them on any level? The

18:36

audience, I never even take the audience in

18:38

the in the consideration. I'm

18:40

like, this is what I'm doing. This is what it is. And

18:43

here and if the audience likes it, great.

18:46

And if they don't like it, you know,

18:48

everything is it for everybody? And

18:50

I move on. A lot of comedians

18:52

started out as, you know, kind of like

18:55

the outsider type person who gives

18:58

their sense of humor to, you

19:00

know, become an insider, become cool. And

19:03

I was never like I graduated

19:05

the most popular boy. I

19:08

was a popular kid. And

19:10

because I was funny, I was always like

19:12

a really popular guy and stuff. So I

19:14

and I wasn't I wasn't I'm not that

19:17

needy, needy comic. And they were

19:19

always laughing from the very beginning. The very

19:21

first time I heard a crowd of people

19:23

laugh was on a bus coming

19:26

from McCarran pool in Brooklyn. And

19:32

we're in the back of the bus. I

19:35

might be like eight, nine years old. And

19:37

when the person would get off a bus,

19:39

I would do like the voice that that person is saying

19:42

when they got off the bus. And I was in the

19:44

back doing it loud like so for a guy would look

19:46

like a cop when he got off

19:48

the bus, I would start saying like a cop's voice.

19:50

And I am going to do so. And the people

19:52

on the bus were laughing every time I would person

19:54

got off the bus, people were laughing. I was like,

19:56

OK, who's he going to do now? And I did

19:59

it all. And when I got

20:01

off the bus, the whole bus clapped. So,

20:03

oh, yeah, I was like eight, nine years old.

20:06

That was the first time I was like, well,

20:08

I can make a crowd of people laugh. And

20:10

then I was just that guy. So I never

20:12

went through that period where you're trying to find,

20:14

you know, what's funny about me and trying to

20:16

get laughs and the bombing and all that shit.

20:19

I didn't go through all of that. They

20:21

were laughing from the beginning. So I never,

20:23

I was never a needy, needy comedian. You

20:27

said you kind of always

20:29

had the audience's approval. You didn't have

20:31

the needy comic thing. But at

20:34

some point, does the money

20:36

become like the symbolic thing

20:38

that shows your status in

20:41

the world because- The money showed my

20:43

status? Yeah. Like the money that you

20:45

were getting from Hollywood. You know, it's like, oh, like this

20:48

other person made this amount of dollars. I

20:51

got to make this or, you know, just- No,

20:53

I didn't have that either. After

20:55

48 hours, Paramount

20:58

gave me some five picture deal. And

21:01

at the time it was like crazy, like some

21:03

five picture deal for, you know, I

21:06

think it was $15 million. And

21:08

to us, that was like, I was set

21:10

for life. So I wasn't,

21:12

I was never like, I've

21:15

never been, I've never been competitive. I

21:17

never been, oh, I got

21:19

to try to outdo what they did. All

21:21

I wanted to do when I started doing

21:23

comedy, I knew I was going to be

21:25

famous, but all I wanted to do creatively

21:28

was meet Richard Pryor and

21:30

be funny. When

21:32

I was on a fucking plane coming from

21:34

Georgia, Richard Pryor was on the plane.

21:36

That's when I first met him. And

21:39

I gave him my cassette of my first

21:41

album. And I sat like two,

21:43

three rows on the other side. And I was

21:45

watching the back of his head and he was

21:47

laughing at my stuff. And

21:51

that was, I could have died right

21:53

there. You could have crashed a plane right there.

21:55

I'd have been like, that was it. To

21:58

make Richard laugh. I made Richard laugh. for

22:00

real. You don't see

22:02

Richard laugh a lot. Think about it. You

22:04

never see Richard's real laugh and it was

22:06

Richard Pryor, Pryor on the flame laugh. He

22:10

laughed like this. I

22:14

said

22:16

Richard Pryor laugh when he really fought. But

22:21

then he gave you a hard time later on. No he didn't.

22:24

Richard Pryor. When did Richard Pryor give me a hard time?

22:26

Bill Cosby gave me a hard time. I

22:28

thought Richard Pryor kind of gave you some attitude because

22:30

he was competitive. But what Bill Cosby gave you a

22:32

hard time about? About being... About language

22:35

and all that shit and all that

22:37

stuff. Richard Pryor was always... That's a

22:39

myth. Because I've heard people say

22:41

before that Eddie and Richard Pryor didn't get along. Not

22:44

at all. Richard Pryor was... He

22:47

didn't become like a mentor or anybody but

22:49

he was my idol. I

22:51

idolized him. My idols were Richard

22:53

Pryor, Muhammad Ali, Bruce

22:56

Lee and Elvis Presley. And

22:59

I met Richard Pryor, Muhammad Ali and

23:01

they were wonderful to me. When we

23:04

landed from that flight from Atlanta, Richard

23:06

was like, which way you going? And I

23:08

was like, I'm going to say, oh, he

23:11

drove me home to the place I was

23:13

staying and he was always

23:15

cool. But Richard is old

23:18

enough to be my dad and

23:20

Richard had substance problems and

23:22

alcohol. He had all these demons and

23:24

stuff. And we had nothing

23:27

in common outside of the fact that

23:29

we were both funny. The

23:31

craziest thing about Bill Cosby giving you a hard

23:33

time about language? Language was a

23:35

way that he could come at it. It wasn't so

23:37

much language. It was the times that we were in.

23:40

That's just back when it was

23:42

one black person at a time was

23:44

getting in the mix. So when I come

23:46

on the scene, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby

23:49

are like, oh, this is the

23:51

new shit that's coming on. So if

23:53

there's some new thing coming on, that's

23:56

a threat to whatever their thing is.

23:58

So that's what Bill Cosby had. should

24:00

probably could look at me and see I was, oh,

24:02

well he's my reflection. That's that kid that's

24:04

trying to be like me. So he wasn't

24:07

threatened. You know, Bill Cosby was like,

24:09

is this the new way it's going to be

24:11

now? He's going to be on stage grabbing a

24:13

dick and talking crazy and all that. So he

24:15

could come at me with all the language, but

24:17

it was more, you know, it's one at a

24:20

time. And is this the new guy who knocked

24:22

me out the spot? That's what it was going

24:24

on back then. So they were competitive in that

24:26

respect. I wasn't even thinking about them like that.

24:28

I was puppy dog and both of them when

24:30

I met them. Did you ever see

24:32

a performer, an artist

24:35

afterwards that made you think, whoa,

24:38

this is like, I have to wrap my head around

24:40

this a little bit. What do you mean? In the

24:42

same way that like, that you just described Cosby and

24:44

Pryor being like, oh, Eddie Murphy's the new stuff. We

24:47

have to like reckon with that. Was there

24:49

ever anybody that you saw that made you

24:51

feel like, huh, I got to understand what

24:53

this person's doing? Oh,

24:56

you mean like someone that came after me, they

24:58

went to the next level and I was like,

25:00

oh, no, never. No, I

25:03

haven't seen that. And that's a

25:05

lot of people that I think are funny and all

25:07

that, but I haven't witnessed the next

25:09

level. The

25:14

ceiling of the whole art form,

25:17

you know, stand up comedy, you

25:19

know, that's Richard. And

25:22

the ceiling for, you know, with movies and

25:24

stuff is for me, is Chaplin. And

25:28

I haven't seen anyone come along that was

25:30

better than Chaplin. What'd

25:32

you take from him? I

25:35

haven't taken anything from Chaplin. The

25:38

only time I've ever tried to be

25:40

like somebody on screen was

25:44

Bruce Lee. People

25:48

forget how big Bruce Lee was when I was

25:50

a kid. To this day, I've never seen anyone

25:53

have, make the audience have

25:55

a reaction like Bruce Lee would do. When

25:57

Bruce Lee movies would go crazy. Bruce

26:00

Lee is the only time I've been in a

26:02

movie where they stopped the movie and the projectionist

26:04

would come out and say, listen, y'all gotta shut

26:06

up and sit down and we can't show the

26:09

movie. They'd have to tell the audience to sit

26:11

down and come, Bruce Lee would drive us crazy.

26:14

And now to this day, when I pull

26:16

a gun out, I'm doing a Bruce Lee

26:18

impression, that whole intense, whatever faces I'm making

26:21

and all that shit is all, I'm doing

26:24

my Bruce Lee looks. I

26:27

always wondered if Elvis was secretly

26:30

the influence behind some of the onstage

26:33

stuff you wore when you were doing

26:35

standup. Elvis had a huge influence on

26:37

me, the leather suits and raw, I

26:39

come out, I have a scarf. And

26:42

I was rolling like Elvis too, when we was on the

26:44

road, I had a crew and I

26:47

had a Memphis mafia, but I had my little

26:49

crew of dudes. He was the whole shit. And

26:51

I used to dress the same way you see

26:53

me dressed and delirious. I used

26:55

to really dress like that on the streets. That

26:59

was totally in my Elvis trip.

27:01

Then when I got older, I

27:03

was like, oh my God, Elvis

27:06

wasn't cool at all. Elvis

27:08

was going through some shit. Now

27:10

Michael, that whole red jacket

27:12

thing and thriller after

27:15

delirious went out in the red suit and all

27:17

that shit, I'm not saying he was influenced, but

27:19

I had on the red jacket before. But

27:24

you're not saying. But

27:26

Elvis, you just mentioned Michael

27:28

Jackson, these guys who really

27:31

achieved the apex of fame, Prince

27:34

is another guy like that. I

27:38

think there really was a period where it felt like

27:40

you were entering that level

27:43

of phenomenon status, not just a

27:45

star, the biggest kind of

27:47

star. Yeah, I'm gonna do all of

27:49

that. And those

27:52

guys I just mentioned, they all kind of

27:54

came to tragic ends. And you realize

27:56

fame can't solve anyone's problems, but it

27:59

can really. cause problems, you know? Do

28:01

you feel like you understand

28:04

the pressures that

28:06

present themselves to people at that level of

28:09

fame that leads to their lives getting so

28:11

kind of warped in a way? Do you

28:13

feel like you have a perspective on that?

28:15

Well, I, uh,

28:19

those guys are all cautionary tales

28:21

for me. I don't

28:23

drink. I

28:25

smoked a joint for the first time I was

28:28

30 years old, but that's the extent of, you

28:30

know, drugs as a, some weed. I

28:32

remember, uh, 19, I went to

28:34

the blues bar. It was me,

28:36

Belushi and Robin Williams they to

28:38

Coke out, start doing Coke. And

28:41

I was like, Oh no, I'm

28:43

cool. And, uh, every

28:45

now and then I would over the years,

28:47

I'd trip about that moment. Cause I was

28:49

really young and it was so easy to

28:51

try some Coke. I wasn't taking some moral

28:54

stance, but I just wasn't interested in it.

28:56

And to not have the desire or

28:59

the curiosity of it that say that's

29:01

providence. God was looking over me in,

29:03

in that moment where I didn't make

29:06

a left turn and

29:08

just everything would have been different. So

29:12

it's really, when you get

29:14

famous, really young, especially, uh,

29:17

black artists, uh, I

29:20

likened it to, it's like living in

29:22

a minefield at any moment you

29:24

could step on a step on a mind at

29:26

any moment, something could happen that can undo

29:29

everything. And, but I

29:31

was oblivious to the fact that I

29:33

was in a minefield. I, I, the,

29:35

the, you ever see apocalypse now? Of

29:38

course. I remember the Robert

29:40

Duvall character and bombs are dropping next

29:42

to him. He didn't see it. That's

29:45

what my life was like. It was like all

29:47

of this stuff is going on bomb and it's totally

29:50

oblivious. It's like walking through a

29:52

minefield and not even realizing you

29:55

were in one. And now this

29:57

age, I can look back and be like, wow. through

30:00

a minefield for 35 years in it. Well,

30:03

how do you make it through a minefield for 35, 40 years?

30:07

Something has to be looking over you.

30:11

Why did you say especially for black artists? What do

30:13

you see as the difference there? First

30:15

of all, this business, it's not set

30:17

up for black artists. It

30:19

was a new thing when I was like,

30:22

okay, a black artist is usually the sidekick.

30:26

The black artist has the leading man and

30:29

it's in a big movie that's watched all around

30:31

the world. So it was like, I'm doing this

30:33

stuff that no one's ever done.

30:36

And it's in a business that's not set up

30:38

for me. It's set up for some white dude

30:40

to be in. So you don't have people watching

30:42

your back and you don't have support groups and

30:44

you don't have any of that shit. You just

30:46

kind of end it. You don't have anybody you

30:48

can go to and say, hey, what about this?

30:51

Well, you don't have any of that. So you kind of

30:53

was just in it. And

30:55

what were the bombs? Just

30:57

everything, imagine, just

31:00

imagine being a young person and

31:02

having the world placed at

31:04

your feet. Nobody's saying no and

31:06

everybody wants to be around you. You

31:09

try all types of shit and get caught up

31:11

in all kinds of stuff. That's

31:14

what destroys people. Yeah.

31:18

Well, you tried pot for the first time when you were 30? Yeah,

31:21

I was 30 years old. I was

31:24

in this recording studio and everybody had

31:26

left. Everybody

31:28

used to smoke all the time. It was a

31:30

joint there. I was like, well, a friend of

31:32

mine, David and his wife, Donna were there. And

31:35

I was like, let me see what it all is. And I

31:37

took a hit on a joint and

31:39

I said, okay.

31:42

And they went to some Jelly Belly Jelly

31:45

Beans, those gourmet jelly beans. And I remember

31:47

taking the jelly beans and eating one and

31:49

trying to guess with my eyes closed, which

31:51

flavor it was. And we were just screaming

31:53

with laughter and was like, oh,

31:56

now I see, now I get it. That's

31:58

all of that shit. So it was

32:01

cool in the beginning. This

32:04

is sort of a random

32:06

question, but I just rewatched

32:08

Bowfinger, which is the

32:11

Hollywood satire you made late 90s, which

32:13

for my money is your best

32:16

performance in a movie. Really? Better

32:19

than Nutty Professor? Well,

32:22

I like Bowfinger more. Yeah, see, but

32:24

for me, there's no comparison. But

32:26

I like Bowfinger, but Nutty Professor, the

32:30

mother, that stuff is

32:32

real. Those makeups that Rick Baker

32:34

did, and they turned

32:37

you into another person. There's no

32:39

sign of me. I could walk in the

32:41

room and person wouldn't even know

32:43

it was me. I think

32:45

that's my best acting. Let's

32:47

put it this way. I like Bowfinger, but

32:50

I could think of 20 other

32:52

actors that could have played that role. I

32:55

can't think of another person that could do

32:57

Nutty Professor. But Bowfinger,

32:59

you do the multiple roles too. Not

33:01

quite the same. Not quite the same.

33:03

Yeah, but a lot of people could do that. But

33:07

the question I had about it was, it's

33:10

to do with the idea of the

33:12

challenge of the material. Where I thought

33:14

watching Bowfinger, you're doing the nerdy character,

33:17

then you're doing the action film character, and

33:20

you're playing opposite Steve Martin. And

33:22

it just seemed like that role was probably, presented

33:25

a particular challenge. And Nutty Professor too,

33:27

what you just described, having to inhabit

33:29

all these different characters. When

33:32

you say challenge, what do you mean challenge? Like

33:36

both the challenge of playing

33:38

the different roles and

33:40

playing them credibly, and

33:43

the tonal challenge of

33:45

doing the comedy, that it's also sort

33:47

of a pretty dark satire in some

33:49

ways. And then also, I imagine

33:52

just the sort of, like

33:55

the competitive challenge of then acting

33:57

opposite another sort of comedy

33:59

legend, Steve Martin. But then,

34:02

you know, the challenges, go ahead. I don't see them

34:04

as, I don't gravitate towards

34:07

things that I think would be challenging.

34:09

This is my question. Yes. I

34:11

don't think if, I don't think if something feels

34:13

challenging, I'm like, I want to do something that

34:16

I know works and something that I know I

34:18

could be funny doing. And

34:20

some, something like working with Steve

34:22

Martin, that somebody that

34:25

you admire and think is funny, that's

34:27

not challenging. That's exciting. They get to

34:29

work with Steve Martin. Anytime

34:32

I'm working with somebody that I really,

34:34

really like, it's not challenging. Why

34:37

are you more interested in the thing that you know is going to

34:39

work? Because first and foremost, I'm

34:41

trying to be funny for my audience. So

34:44

you want to do stuff that you know is going to

34:46

be funny for them. I still

34:48

do all different types of things, even though

34:50

I don't want to be challenged. I

34:52

still do all types of things. I've done

34:55

all types of things. And he even thought

34:57

that some of them was challenging. I'm like,

34:59

it wasn't challenging. What's

35:01

challenging is when you're in a movie and the

35:03

movie ain't shit. That's

35:05

challenging. That's

35:08

challenging when you're sitting in the screening

35:10

room and you see the first print

35:12

of Pluto Nash. That's challenging.

35:15

I remember the first time you watched Pluto

35:17

Nash, I had my son Miles with me.

35:19

He was probably about eight

35:23

and just a director. My

35:25

lawyer's sitting there and Miles was sitting there with me

35:27

and the whole movie goes, the movie's

35:31

all soft and shit. Then at the end of the

35:33

very last music

35:36

sting and right, it all

35:38

goes silent. And my little baby son says,

35:41

corny, corny.

35:45

And that was challenging. You

35:49

know, little baby, even the baby knows it's

35:51

corny. We were just watching

35:53

the other day, we were just watching the new

35:55

Beverly Hills Cop movie and we're all watching it.

35:57

One of my kids, while he's watching it, he

35:59

knows. for the first time he's

36:01

watching, he's on his phone looking at shit,

36:03

he ain't barely paying it no mind. You

36:05

have to ask him if he liked the

36:07

movie. I was like, well, he ain't even

36:10

watching this shit. He was doing

36:12

some kind of math equation too. He stopped watching

36:14

the movie. He was like, six times, 27. I

36:17

was like, wow, he's doing math, he's doing

36:19

the movie. I actually told him, hey son,

36:21

don't do math right now, watch the movie.

36:26

So I just saw Axle f

36:28

a couple of days ago. It's

36:30

coming out 40 years after the first

36:32

Beverly Hills Cop movie. What

36:34

made you want to go back to that

36:36

franchise now? We've been

36:38

trying to develop another Beverly Hills

36:41

Cop since 96. The

36:45

one that we did in 94, I

36:47

didn't think the movie came out good. There's

36:49

been 10 different scripts and

36:51

a bunch of different producers and

36:54

we just tried for years and years and it just wouldn't come

36:56

together. Two, we got Jerry

36:59

back involved, the original producer. Jerry

37:01

Bruckheimer. Jerry Bruckheimer, yeah. And Jerry,

37:03

he understood it the most because

37:06

it's his movie and it

37:09

all came together. Why

37:11

was it so hard to figure out what

37:13

the next Axle Foley movie should be? Well,

37:15

if you look at the third Beverly Hills

37:17

Cop, it just didn't have the emotional

37:20

hook that

37:22

the other ones have. Axle has

37:24

to be fueled by, you

37:26

know, one of his friends or somebody close

37:28

to him is in danger or died or

37:30

something. That's what's fueling the

37:32

first two movies. The movie needs a

37:34

great villain and that's what

37:37

Jerry brought all the elements back

37:39

to. It was his recipe. Because

37:41

Beverly Hills Cop, you know, this

37:44

whole action comedy genre

37:46

kind of starts with Beverly Hills Cop.

37:49

Before Beverly Hills Cop, cops

37:51

were really serious, you know, dirty hat,

37:53

go ahead and make my day. It

37:55

was no comedy with the cops. Beverly

37:58

Hills Cop kind of... pioneered

38:00

that, then all those movies that

38:02

came out afterwards, you know, Lethal

38:04

Weapon and Die Hard and all

38:06

those movies, all the cops then

38:08

are being funny and having one-liners

38:11

and yippee-ki-yay motherfucker and all

38:13

that stuff. That kind of starts after

38:15

Beverly Hills Cop. But

38:19

you know what you were saying about how it just

38:22

took so long for the right elements to come

38:24

together for the new film and also how Beverly

38:26

Hills Cop 3 didn't really work, it sort of

38:28

is reminding me, I was just reading this book

38:30

that Steve Martin did and he said he basically

38:32

doesn't want to make movies anymore. He made 40

38:35

movies and he had to

38:37

make 40 movies to get five good ones and

38:40

he kind of just didn't, you know, sort of lost

38:42

his juice for it. Does

38:44

that sort of resonate for you? Like it

38:46

actually is really hard to

38:49

make things more good. Yeah, I have

38:51

more than five good ones though. I

38:54

feel like I have maybe five or six bad ones.

38:58

You know, Plutonash and Plutonash

39:03

might be the only shitty movie. I have a

39:05

couple of movies that are soft, a movie that's

39:07

like, okay, this movie is just okay, but it's

39:09

not something that you're going to go see over

39:11

and over again. It's just, but

39:13

no flops. I used to call movies flop,

39:15

oh this movie is a flop, that movie

39:17

is a flop. I'm like, there's no such

39:19

thing as flop. I remember, because I've been

39:21

in this business long enough to know that

39:24

when I got in this business, there was

39:26

no Black Hollywood and there was just, you

39:28

know, a handful of Black people that were

39:30

working in films and just

39:32

to get in a movie is, you

39:35

know, an accomplishment. And

39:37

you feel like you still have like

39:40

the joy has never diminished or the pleasure in

39:42

the actual process of making the stuff. I've never

39:44

had joy, there never was joy in the process

39:47

of making a movie. The process of making a

39:49

movie is, it's work. You have

39:51

to get up early in the morning and then

39:53

the actual being in a scene. That's like a

39:56

small part of the day. I love that when

39:58

we're on the set and we're trying to make

40:00

it work and it's coming, you feel it clicking.

40:02

I love that, but hurry up

40:04

and wait. That's the movie business and it

40:07

is not fun. It

40:09

is joy when the movie is finished and

40:11

the movie worked. Then it's a joy. Yeah.

40:15

As far as the process goes. And I

40:17

never lose sight of the fact that

40:20

there's no flops because this is a blessing.

40:22

Just to be able to do this for

40:25

a living is a blessing. You

40:30

referred to the term

40:33

Providence earlier in the conversation. And

40:35

also when we were talking about sort of

40:37

avoiding the bombs, you said somebody's looking out

40:39

for me. Do you ever wonder why you?

40:44

I asked that question to Richard Pryor when

40:46

I first met him in a

40:48

car. And he said, you can't think like that,

40:51

Eddie. He said, look at that bumble, but there

40:53

was a bum walking down the street. He said,

40:55

he's wondering why him? And it's like,

40:57

yeah, you can't even, you

40:59

can't think like that. Just being here,

41:03

the chances of being born one in

41:05

400 trillion. Then

41:07

when you add nuance to it and all, meet

41:09

somebody and where you wind up working and what

41:11

you wind up doing, whether you win the lottery,

41:14

all the stuff that you add to it, what

41:19

my life has become and the life that I've

41:21

had on paper wouldn't even

41:23

happen. So I can't question and I

41:25

have to go, this

41:27

is all the way it's supposed to

41:29

be. After

41:35

the break, I give Eddie a call back

41:37

for some more stories about Hollywood and why

41:39

his early days there weren't always easy. I

41:42

was the only one out there. It was like, I'm this

41:44

young, rich, black one. Everybody wasn't happy

41:46

about that in 1983. Ha

41:49

ha ha ha. Even

41:52

black folks. With

42:02

Schwab Investing Themes, it's easy to

42:04

invest in ideas you believe in,

42:06

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42:08

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42:14

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42:16

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42:18

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42:20

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42:22

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42:25

Schwab Investing Themes is not intended

42:27

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42:29

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42:32

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42:59

playing in the New York Times

43:01

Games app. You

43:29

can download it at nytimes.com/games

43:31

app. Subscribe by July 21st

43:34

to get a special offer. Hi

43:38

Eddie. Hey,

43:42

what's up man? You

43:45

sound mellow. I'm a mellow guy.

43:48

All right, good, good. You

43:52

know, I want to ask you this. So, you know, I

43:54

think I first got in touch with

43:56

your publicist about trying to interview you four years

43:58

ago. during the pandemic and I think we got

44:00

close and then it fell apart because we couldn't

44:02

figure out how to do the photo and then

44:05

this past February I got in touch and he's like, oh, you

44:07

know, it might work out this time. You

44:09

know what, he finally wrote me back and said, okay,

44:11

Eddie is up for this and then he put in

44:13

quotation marks, which I assume meant it came from you,

44:15

as long as there are no cheap shots. And

44:18

I was thinking, what kind of cheap shot would

44:20

you be worried about? Well,

44:22

I wasn't worried about anything. I

44:24

say that before I do any

44:26

interview, no cheap shots. It's kind

44:29

of a tongue in cheek thing that I say. Do

44:32

you feel like you've taken a lot of

44:34

cheap shots from the press over the years? Oh,

44:37

wow. Back in the old days, they used

44:39

to be relentless on me. And a lot

44:41

of it was racist stuff, you know, it

44:43

was a whole, it was a whole different,

44:45

there was no black Hollywood, there was

44:48

no rappers and it was hip hop,

44:50

it was the eighties and it was,

44:53

you know, just a whole different world.

44:56

Can you remember any examples? In what way was

44:58

it racist? Just think about it.

45:00

It was the, you know, Ronald Reagan was

45:02

the president and it was that America.

45:05

You would do interviews and be

45:08

like, I didn't say that, I don't talk that

45:10

way. They would be writing it in this weird

45:14

ghetto. I don't

45:17

know what it is. I wish to have really weird

45:19

shit that would go on. Then I

45:22

got really popular and then there was this negative

45:24

backlash that comes with it. It's like,

45:27

I was the only one out there. It was like, I'm

45:29

this young rich black one. Everybody

45:32

wasn't happy about

45:34

that in 1983.

45:37

Even black folks,

45:39

you get cheap shots from your people. Did

45:42

it hurt? You

45:44

know, I remember when Nutty Professor came out, this shows

45:47

you how that is not even that long ago. I

45:49

got a cheap shot from my people. For

45:52

the most part, everybody loves Nutty

45:56

Professor. But when it came out,

45:58

I remember Ebony magazine. Instead

46:00

of talking about the movie, my

46:02

performance and all that, they said,

46:04

uh, maybe

46:07

there'll come a day when a black man

46:09

can play a professor and he doesn't have

46:11

to be nutty. I was like,

46:13

what the fuck? That's the review

46:15

of my movie. That's the review of that.

46:18

I play all these different characters and that's

46:20

what you say about me and it's us

46:22

and it's me. Yeah, that hurt my feelings.

46:24

That hurt my feelings. Like, you know, when

46:26

David Spade said that shit

46:28

about my career on SNL, it was like,

46:30

yo, it's in house. I'm

46:33

one of the family and you fuck with me like

46:35

that. It hurt my feelings like that. Yeah. Yeah.

46:38

I'm trying to remember. He made some comment about

46:41

your, a couple of movies of yours flopped

46:43

or something like that. No, no, one movie.

46:45

No, no, no, no, no, no.

46:47

Vampire Brooklyn came out and it was,

46:50

and that it flopped. He

46:52

showed a picture of me up on

46:54

the news and he said, Hey, everybody

46:56

catch a falling star. And it was

46:58

like, wait, hold on. This is Saturday

47:00

Night Live. I'm the biggest

47:03

thing that ever came off that show. The show

47:05

would have been off the air if I didn't

47:07

go back on the show and now you get

47:09

somebody from the cast making a

47:11

crack about my career. And

47:13

I know that he can't just say that a joke has

47:15

to go through these channels. So the producers

47:18

thought it was okay to say that. And

47:20

you've never, all the people that have been

47:22

on that show, you never heard nobody make

47:24

no joke about anybody's career. And most

47:26

people that get off that show, you know, they don't go on to

47:28

have these amazing careers, you know,

47:30

so I took it. It

47:32

was personal. It was like, yo, how could you

47:34

do that? What? My

47:37

career? Really a joke about my career. So

47:40

I, yeah, I thought that was, you know, that was a

47:42

cheap shot. And it was kind of racist.

47:45

I thought I felt it was racist. And

47:47

then you stayed away from the show for a long time after that.

47:51

Thirty years or something.

47:53

In the long run, it's all good. Worked

47:56

out great. I'm cool with David

47:58

Spade. I'm with

48:00

Lauren Michaels, I went back to SNL, I'm

48:02

cool with everybody. It's all

48:04

love, but I had a

48:06

couple of cheap shots. You

48:11

know, one thing I wanted to ask you, when

48:13

we were discussing sort of how you think about

48:16

your relationship with your audience, and

48:18

you said that, you know, you kind of just

48:20

approach it from the perspective of, you know, you're

48:22

going to make what you think

48:24

is good and what you think is funny and hopefully the

48:26

audience likes it. And you

48:28

also said that, you know, you

48:30

don't really think about work

48:32

in terms of seeking out challenges, like

48:35

you're looking to do the projects that

48:37

you're confident will succeed. And

48:39

I'm wondering if you can help me

48:41

understand that a little bit more, because it feels...

48:43

I'll say succeed, I'll say succeed or work. Well,

48:45

I think the word you used was stuff

48:47

that will work. Yeah. Yeah.

48:51

But don't you have to think about the audience's needs

48:53

in order to have a sense if something

48:55

is going to work or not? How

48:58

could you think about the audience's needs?

49:00

A billion people on the planet. And

49:03

no two people having the same experience

49:05

and they don't know. The audience doesn't.

49:08

That's a better way of putting it. The

49:10

audience has no clue what's funny. You

49:12

got to show them what's funny. They'll know. And

49:15

if something is funny to me, I've

49:17

never ever, ever had anything that made

49:19

me laugh that when I said

49:22

it to an audience, the audience just

49:24

sat there and looked at me. I think it's

49:26

funny if I get that little feeling, like it's

49:28

that silly little feeling like this

49:30

is funny. It's always funny. So

49:33

why can't you get soul, soul, soul made then? You

49:36

obviously think it's funny. Probably other people will

49:38

think it's funny. I've almost made

49:40

soul, soul, soul a bunch of times. But

49:43

I'll get right up to it and then I'll be like, this

49:46

is too self-indulgent. Nobody's going to go see this.

49:48

Just a lot of... put a whole lot of

49:50

work into it. Can people be

49:52

laughing real hard? I have

49:54

some other movie that will come up and I will

49:56

go do it. That's the way it's

49:58

been going. 30

50:01

years almost. I just

50:03

recently had that experience with Donald

50:07

Glover. I showed him that little

50:09

clip, the soul, soul, soul thing. And

50:12

he was like, yo, you got to make this movie.

50:14

How do we make this movie? I was like, yeah,

50:16

yeah. He could figure out a

50:18

way. And I don't know. But he was like,

50:20

he wanted to do it. How

50:23

many people have seen that trailer? Not

50:25

a lot of people. It's like an inside

50:27

thing. I'm privileged. I think

50:29

it's very telling, though. Like, surely you, you

50:31

of all comedians and

50:34

comic entertainers have earned the right

50:36

to make a

50:38

self-indulgent project. Why not just do it? Because

50:42

it's so much, it's so much

50:45

work. That's what's been

50:47

the deterrent. It's like, wow, you got to come up

50:49

with all of this stuff and shoot all of this

50:51

stuff and do all of this. A lot of work

50:53

is like doing a nutty professor

50:55

movie. You got to go get all

50:58

these famous people. You got a

51:00

lot of, a lot of the people that I wanted to

51:02

get in there passed away over these. You want to get

51:05

anybody that's alive that was a soul artist. You got to

51:07

get them in it. You got any old

51:09

rockers. You got to get all of them

51:11

in it to make it seem like this

51:13

Murray is a real guy. Just a lot,

51:15

a lot of work. But

51:18

I tell you one day I'll do it. I'm going to

51:20

do it one day. You

51:25

also described an ideal day for you. And

51:27

you said that an ideal day is a

51:29

day where you basically do nothing. You know,

51:31

you said you don't really read

51:34

newspapers, you

51:36

know, kind of just like to hang out at

51:38

home, you know, play music and stuff. But I,

51:40

you know, you're obviously like

51:43

an intellectually curious guy.

51:45

You're a sensitive artist who observes

51:47

and feels things deeply. So what

51:52

is interesting to you in the wider world?

51:54

I don't know, science, climate change,

51:56

politics. Are you interested in any of that stuff? turn

52:00

on CNN, I have

52:03

like a

52:05

week where I'll get picked up on everything

52:08

and I'll turn it off and watch

52:11

it get totally detached

52:13

from it. If you watch that shit

52:16

every day, you go fucking crazy. You

52:18

go crazy. You can't be in the

52:20

moment. You can't be in the moment.

52:23

Can't be in the present moment when you're

52:26

off in that shit. You're off in the

52:28

computer and you're off doing it. Reading

52:31

about all the other shit. I'm trying to

52:33

be right here all the

52:35

time. This moment, this is the only

52:37

moment that's real. Do

52:40

you spend any time on the internet other than reading

52:42

news now and then? I don't

52:44

go on the internet. I'll go and

52:46

watch YouTube and

52:49

I'll, I don't just go random on it.

52:51

I'll ask like something

52:54

specific like, you know,

52:56

peg leg baits. You know

52:58

who peg leg baits is? No,

53:01

who's peg leg baits? I'm

53:11

glad you don't know. Go you,

53:13

peg leg baits. You ever

53:15

heard the expression taking your lemons

53:17

and turning them into lemonade? Yeah,

53:20

of course. Oh, peg leg baits

53:22

is the, the personification

53:24

of that. Peg leg baits

53:26

is a one leg tap dancer from

53:29

the 40s I think. And

53:32

he was, you just

53:35

Google peg leg. You Google after you

53:37

finish your head. He will on

53:39

the Ed Sullivan show a lot, but

53:41

he's amazing. Eddie,

53:44

this is going to date the interview a little. It'll

53:47

be old news by the time this runs, but Trump

53:49

was just found guilty in the hush money case. No,

53:52

guilty. Wow. I did not

53:55

see that. I did not

53:57

think. that was going to

54:00

happen. All counts.

54:03

And how about this? I don't think he's going to

54:05

affect the election at all. You

54:07

don't think so? No. This

54:10

is some other shit we've never seen, but we've never

54:12

seen anything like this. Some

54:16

whole other thing. Wow, they

54:18

found them guilty.

54:21

That's crazy. Do

54:25

you have time for a couple more? You want to split or? Oh,

54:28

no, I'm cool, man. Oh, good.

54:30

I appreciate it. Fuck Trump. Wait,

54:34

oh, here's a good one. There's an

54:36

old interview that you did with Spike

54:39

Lee in Spin magazine. I want to say from like

54:42

early 90s, late 80s, something like that. And

54:44

in there, you say that you believe

54:46

the government bugged your house

54:49

at what point? Why did you believe

54:51

that? Well,

54:53

we found a little microphone in my

54:55

house, in my bedroom. Did

54:58

I say the government? Somebody put up somebody

55:00

put up a microphone in there. I

55:03

don't know. Why would they have done that? Who

55:06

even knows? In

55:08

the 80s, all they heard in my room was serious

55:11

fucking going. All

55:15

they heard in my room, they would listen to

55:17

the bug saying, God, you be doing some serious

55:19

fucking. Oh,

55:25

boy, you know, it's hard to segue from that one.

55:30

They had a bug in my room in the

55:32

80s. They had no shit they could play over.

55:39

All right. Let

55:41

me go. Let me go here. You

55:45

know, I heard a Kevin Hart

55:47

tell a story on Howard Stern show.

55:50

He talked about a dinner that I think maybe

55:53

Dave Chappelle organized was Kevin Hart.

55:55

You Chris Rock, Chris Tucker,

55:58

Dave Chappelle. And in Kevin

56:00

Hart's recollection of it, it's kind of this lovely

56:04

moment where, you know, you're all

56:06

sharing stories and I guess trading jokes, but

56:08

really it was kind of

56:10

about sort of showing their respect for

56:12

you. Do you remember that dinner?

56:14

Yeah, I remember it, but I don't remember being

56:18

the focal point of

56:20

the table. Well,

56:23

but he really put it in terms of, you

56:27

laid down the path for those other guys, you know,

56:29

and maybe it didn't feel like that's how, you know,

56:32

that was kind of the vibe in the

56:34

moment. But do

56:36

you understand what you mean to

56:38

comedians like Kevin Hart and Chappelle

56:41

and Chris Rock and Chris Tucker?

56:44

Well, I didn't lay down a path, they

56:46

took their own path. What happened with me

56:48

was that the comic used

56:51

to be, you know, the

56:53

sidekick in the opening act and I

56:55

changed it to where, you know, the

56:57

comic can be the main attraction. They

57:00

thought of comics one way and it was

57:02

like, no, a comic could be this and

57:04

the comic could sell out the arena and

57:06

the comic could be in $100 million movies.

57:08

It didn't have to be, you know, a

57:10

black exploitation movie, it could be a movie

57:12

that's accessible to everyone and all around

57:14

the world, people would go see it, a

57:17

black star. And,

57:19

you know, one

57:21

of the other things that stuck with me

57:23

from our first conversation was, you

57:26

know, you described just

57:28

the plain fact of getting to do what you

57:30

do for a living as a blessing. And

57:33

I was thinking about that sort of

57:36

in the context of, you

57:39

know, also how you said you knew you were gonna

57:42

be famous, you knew, you didn't think it, you knew

57:44

it. And then also you got

57:46

so successful and so famous

57:50

so quickly that I think you had

57:52

said, you know, you took the success

57:54

a little bit for granted. I'm

57:57

curious, when did you stop taking success

57:59

for granted? and start seeing your

58:02

career and your life as a blessing.

58:06

Wow, I think I knew it

58:09

was a blessing from the beginning. I took

58:11

how fast everything was moving

58:13

for granted. Like, oh yeah, I

58:16

guess this happened to everybody. Happens

58:18

like this and I did say

58:20

I was gonna be, so this is what happens when you get

58:22

famous. So I took all of that for granted, but I was

58:24

never like, oh yeah, you know.

58:28

I'm the shit, this just happened to me.

58:30

I always felt like it was a blessing.

58:32

There's no higher blessing. You make people laugh.

58:36

That's more than anything. It's more than

58:38

making them dance and whatever, making them

58:40

feel drama or whatever. You can make

58:43

people laugh. That's the best shit ever.

58:46

And to know and look around and see that

58:48

all the good things that came in my life

58:50

that came to me all came from making somebody

58:52

laugh, that's a beautiful

58:54

feeling, man. That's

58:59

Eddie Murphy. Axl F

59:01

will be available on Netflix July 3rd. This

59:04

conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It

59:06

was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by

59:08

Efim Shapiro and Corey Schrepple. Original

59:11

music by Dan Powell and Marianne

59:13

Lozano. Photography by Philip

59:16

Montgomery. Our senior booker is

59:18

Priya Matthew and our senior producer is Seth Kelly.

59:21

Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Special

59:24

thanks to Susan Vallett, Rory

59:26

Walsh, Renan Barelli, Maddie Masiello,

59:28

Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and

59:30

Sam Dolnick. If

59:32

you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to

59:34

the interview wherever you get your podcasts. And

59:36

to read or listen to any of

59:39

our conversations, you can always go to

59:41

nytimes.com/The Interview. And you can

59:43

email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com.

59:47

We'll be back with a new episode

59:49

in two weeks when Lulu Garcia Navarro

59:51

talks to Robert Putnam, the author of

59:53

Bowling Alone, about his decades-long fight to

59:55

combat loneliness and division in America. I've

59:58

been working for most of- my adult life,

1:00:00

and maybe even longer than that, to try

1:00:02

to build a better, a more

1:00:05

productive, more equal, more connected

1:00:07

community in America. And

1:00:10

now I'm 83 and looking back and it's

1:00:12

been a total failure. I'm

1:00:14

David Marchese and this is the interview from the

1:00:16

New York Times. With

1:00:27

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Buy all the stocks in a theme as is,

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