Axel Foley makes his glorious return to Beverly Hills this week with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F gracing our home screens. And while Axel is one of Eddie Murphy’s most famous characters, there is no shortage of iconic roles from the comedian. Audiences have gravitated towards the likes of Axel, Reggie Hammond from 48 Hrs., Akeem from Coming to America, or even Chandler Gerald from The Golden Child. However, Murphy himself feels his best performance (or rather performances) comes from the 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor, in which he famously played the Klump family, minus the child, as well as a take on Richard Simmons.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Eddie reflects on his past performances. The interviewer brought up the film Bowfinger and praised Murphy’s performance (where he also played multiple roles as twins). However, Murphy still holds Nutty Professor at the top. The Beverly Hills Cop star stated,
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.“
Murphy himself is a hyphenate entertainer with his origins going back to the stand-up comedy world. The big question that sits in the back of everyone’s mind is if he’d ever make a return to the stage after 1987’s Eddie Murphy Raw became his swan song.
Murphy addresses, “I used to have little periods where l’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!”
We got to sit down with Eddie Murphy for our own interview, which you can watch HERE.