WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1207 - Eddie Murphy

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

In order for Eddie Murphy to become “Eddie Murphy” he had to become a comedian. Eddie tells Marc, comic-to-comic, what it was like being a Black teenager on Long Island building a standup act fueled by impressions and inspired by Richard Pryor. And now, with fatherhood at the center of his life, Eddie explains why he wants to bookend his career by going back on stage. Eddie also talks about the real reason he exploded on the movie scene, why he stopped doing standup before he turned 30, and why it was finally the right time to make Coming 2 America. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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and ACAST Creative. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What's happening? You all right?

You holding up? You okay? You locked in? If you're new to to this show this is a good day to be here eddie murphy is here well i talked to him and the recording of that is here a couple of things before we get to eddie before i set that up i uh i don't know if i won or not. Okay, I'm recording this the day before the Critics' Choice Awards. So today, those results would be out. So what I'm going to do now is tell you how I'm feeling heading into that

because I have to do that show from my dining room. Here's how it's been set up to me and if any of you watched it, you'll know. Maybe. I don't know what the fuck. I could have a heart attack shortly after i record this but it was going to be i think it was me and patton and uh hannah and fortune and michelle uh jerry seinfeld

do you need last names patton oswalt fortune feimimster, Hannah Gatsby, Michelle Bateau and me and Jerry Seinfeld I'm nominated for End Times Fun I'm proud of that took a long time to put it together it's a beautiful uh beautiful special collaborative effort by me and uh the late great lynn shelton who directed it but i never went anything i'm going to be doing stand-up comedy professionally that means making a living at it one way or the other for 33 years come august this august so add another three or four to that-ish from starting out. So 37 years, 36 years I've been doing this. And the only real award I can remember winning for my stand-up comedy was coming in second place in the WBCN's Comedy Riot in 1988. And that's what started me working.

That was the last time I think I won a prize for my stand-up of any value. I'm prepared to lose, and I'll be there on camera losing. So you will have seen that. And if I win, it would break a historical losing streak for me and any sort of award. So that's where i'm at i'll tell you i'll let you know how i feel after the show on thursday so look eddie murphy there was a time when we were younger all of us and there was nobody nobody bigger than ed Murphy. Eddie Murphy was the biggest star in the world for a long time. Nobody was bigger than Eddie Murphy. And I don't even think we remember when the media and entertainment universe was smaller what that meant.

But those first few movies, like Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours Trading Places, SNL, Delirious, the comedy special, huge global domination. And the truth is he has stayed a vital part of show. He's had a career in show business for, what, 40 years or something? But the interesting thing about him, outside of him being naturally fucking hilarious and then there was those years where people were like people always like is he still funny is he going to be funny is he going to act funny they'd see him on shows would he act funny even back in the day he would make a choice whether he was going to act funny or not what he would and wouldn't do however he felt sometimes he was sort of dickish about it and sometimes rightfully so i mean i watch a lot of stuff just to get eddie in

my head it was just very interesting to see him on old johnny carson clips where his talent and his his sort of demeanor was so huge he was effortlessly funny. And he was so sort of at odds just naturally and for personal reasons and probably for racial reasons with the entertainment industry in a way. Just to see him with Carson and to see Carson trying to goad him into doing a Bill Cosby impression. Just Eddie is sort of like not going to do it and deciding he wouldn't do it just because he didn't feel like it. He didn't want to be told what to do. It really was reflective of the sort of weird expectation. at that time, you know, on several appearances on Letterman, on Carson, where they would constantly get him to try to do impressions or they would ask him what he does with his money. And he brought to it to their attention that these were specifically questions that were unique to black guests. And why him? But it was also that I don't think anybody knew what to do with a guy who became that big a star so quickly. But the bottom line is, man, is he had the goods. He had effortlessly had the fucking goods, man. I mean, he could riff like Robin.

He was quick. He could do voices. He could mimic. He could do quick jokes. He had a long sort of deep reservoir of references. And he just wouldn't play the game if he didn't want to. He didn't give a fuck. Zero fucks.

It was sort of fascinating to see him kind of arc and just sort of continue to be part of show business but not be as necessarily himself as he used to be or what we knew him to be when he was young. He's only a couple years older than me. He's got 10 kids. So heading into this thing, i didn't know how i was gonna do it because it's a big it's a big um big career big personality and you don't really know

i didn't really know you know who who is eddie really and and is he gonna, and is he going to be funny? Is he going to be funny? Is he going to be, uh, detached? I didn't know. So the way that I dealt with Eddie was I was going to deal with him as a comic. He was a comic. He was a real comic. He was a guy that wanted nothing more than to do comedy all his life. And although his two comedy specials, delirious and raw are definitely very different in tone and definitely different in terms of where he was with his ego and with his success. But he was the real deal. And he was doing comedy when he was like 16 years old. So I thought I talked to Chris Rock years ago about him and just about, you know, his time at the comic strip, his time doing those gigs in New York and Long Island, Florida. You know, he was a 17 year old kid who had a gift as a comic.

He had a depth to it that was almost a prodigy like. And he knows who his heroes are. This is a kind of an amazing conversation about uh people we both knew people that you know he revered you know richard prior specifically and you know his experience around that but uh you know just also just kind of yeah i i did i'll be honest with you before we head into the interview i did try to you know kind of figure out what he was why he had a chip on his shoulder when he was at the top of his game but But, you know, he didn't really see it that way. So there is a little bit of persistence on my part around that because, you know,

I like to connect around the anger, you know. This was a great conversation. And I was just so thrilled, to be honest with you. Like you never know. Like I said, I think I told you this the other day. You know, back in the day when we were doing this at the house, you know, I'd get to talk with the guys, talk with the ladies, whoever was on, he, she, them. And, you know, they'd come to my house, we'd warm up a little bit and then we'd get into it. But you never know with the Zoom.

You get on, you do the tech thing, make sure everything's tight, and then you get into it. So how do you connect? And I tell you, man i you know eddie got on and he was in his house he's in a room with wooden like panel wood beautiful wooden walls there were some candles behind him and he was in this black this red seating arrangement and he was just sitting there and it looked very specific to me so what i'm referencing at the beginning of this is is because that was the image i was looking at eddie sitting in a red uh upholstered seating situation that i couldn't see the edges of behind him just this stained beautiful old looking wood

wall of wooden panels and candles and that's uh that's how he came in and and and this is how i came in so this is me talking to eddie murphy uh the movie is uh that he's promoting is coming to america with the two coming to number two America. That's the sequel. It's now streaming on Amazon prime video. Also toward the beginning of this, I mentioned Richie to him and that's his old manager, Richie Tinkin, who just passed away last week.

And here we go. Enjoy me and Eddie Murphy. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, Me and Eddie Murphy. Yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

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18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. What's going on, Mark? How you doing, Eddie? I'm good, man. How are you? I'm okay, man. It's nice to see you. Yeah, same here.

I've noticed in some of your other interviews that the candles were lit behind you, but I guess not today. It's okay. Did you turn the candles off? He made mention of it. He said, I noticed the candles were lit in the other. I don't need the candles. I don't need them. It's not video. Now you're going to put them on. We have to put them on. Because if you didn't want them, it not video now you're gonna put them on we have to put them on because if you didn't if you didn't want them you wouldn't have said anything i just didn't know if they were real someone said that they were like a light but it's a real candle huh yeah they just burnt down really low isn't that petty of me i'm like hey you know i saw you on fallon and the candles were lit what

the fuck is that about what am i were lit. What am I? Nothing? I don't even get a candle? Where's my fucking candle? Where's the dry candles? So we're going to make it nice for you, Mark. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Two more?

Where are you sitting? Do you have a steakhouse at your place? No. What kind of, where are you sitting? Do you have a steakhouse at your place? No, you know, he just asked me. He said, where are you sitting? Do you have a steakhouse at your place? No, this is the lounge. There's a bowling alley here. Not a steakhouse.

Really? And this is the lounge right by the bowling alley. So, booths and stuff. Oh, how many lanes you got two two lanes open to the public or just private or nice little private do you have to rent shoes over there what do you got going on the shoes come uh complimentary with the with your steak how you feeling what's going on with the um how much material did you have in place before you had a you know put the kibosh on that tour you were gonna do how much material i mean were you working shit out or what but we i think i have we have to use the word material loosely because i

don't even it's not it's not like i write they They have a conversation, you say something funny, and if you're working out, just go try it out at the club. Yeah. Well, now, when that happens, I just say it in the phone. Yeah. So I probably got two, three hours of one, two, three-line premises I have to give some structure to. I don't want to be presumptuous. I think you should just release those phone memos i mean i i think that

just have you going it's uh dogs and uh you know what i'm saying dogs and mayonnaise what the fuck is this dogs and mayonnaise bit gonna be you ever get so far away from those notes notes where you don't even know what the fuck you were talking about? Oh, yeah. When you find it, what the fuck? The perfect example. Mayonnaise. That's five years later, I found something that said mayonnaise.

What the fuck was mayonnaise? It was important at the moment. Yeah, it was going to kill. It was going to be my killer bit back then. To the point where you wrote it down. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I do that, too. I just make the outlines. I don't write the jokes. I just do the the trigger words you know the the button words now like oh okay i'm gonna remember that that's from doing standing for years and years and years well yeah but that's always how i did i was sorry to hear about richie i don't know how close you guys were but i was sorry to hear about that oh yeah i heard about that the other day yeah man he's part of my you know my history rich for sure yeah right he was all do you remember meeting that guy oh yeah i remember you know back in the early 80s the kind of late

70s the comic strip so where you were you grew up where i grew up uh i was born in brooklyn lived until i was 11 then i moved out to long island roose Long Island. So what was the deal out there? I mean, when did you start getting involved with knowing that the comedy was a thing? Comedy wasn't a thing back then. It wasn't no thing. It was like in New York you had Catch a Rising Star, the improv, and the comic strip. And that was in the city. Out on Long Island you didn't have nothing.

There was no comedy clubs. There was one club called, remember a dude back in the city. Out on Long Island, you didn't have nothing. There was no comedy club. There was one club called, remember a dude back in the 70s, this Richard Nixon lookalike named Richard M. Dixon? He had a comedy club on Long Island. It was Richard M. Dixon's White House Inn and on Wednesday nights, he would have comedy nights.

I started working out there when I was about 16. And that was the only joint? Governors wasn't there yet? There was no Governors. There was no Eastside Comedy Club. None of that stuff was out there yet. Man, I remember going to Governors.

The last time I played Governors, you could still smoke in there. Yeah, I never played Governor. What was the other one, too? It was a rock place we used to play. My father's place. You remember that place? Yeah, don't know spira gyra was there every week they had had their time so it was just you and charlie no charlie wasn't doing stand-up back he wasn't but i mean he's the only the only sibling just the two of you oh no no i

have one i have a younger brother who's like six years younger. Yeah? What's he do? We have different dads. Oh. So his name is Lynch. Oh, okay. And what's he do? He's a bunch of different stuff. He's a martial artist.

He trains his son. His son is a boxer. He trains him. He does a bunch of different things. So Lynch, Vernon Lynch was your stepfather. Yes. Yeah. But I don't like to say that because he kind of raised me. From when you were a kid, right? Yeah. there's a bunch of different things so so lynch was vernon lynch was your stepfather yes yeah but i don't like to say that because he kind of raised me from when you were a kid right yeah he's your father yeah he's my dad and and how close is that version of him that you did on uh delirious how

how close is that and you know it's a trip uh my dad was like that when we was young and because of that sketch or that whenever i would do that uh him on stage yeah nobody would be laughing harder than my mother because it was true because my dad had a drinking problem right it'd be like it and i you know 10 000 people and my mother would be screaming and because of that my dad stopped drinking really actually yeah he stopped drinking because of those bits well that's funny but yeah he a lot like, he was just like that when he was. Oh, my God. So you had to deal with all that insanity, the volatility all the time?

Not all the time, just every now and then. Oh, yeah, right. It wasn't every night. You knew when it was going to happen, right? You knew the tone. Yeah, but when it happened, it wasn't funny. It was like, you know, serious, you know serious you know scary yeah scary but when you get for a comedian that turns into you know one of your best bits exactly and also like when you grow up in that shit you know there's

two ways to go either you make it funny and you learn how to figure out how to survive and manage it or you know you get fucked up yourself and you chose the other you chose the i'm gonna make this funny and survive this shit yeah i don't have i don't know i don't i never drank i don't drink well i mean i imagine if you grow up with someone like that you why would you you're scared of it yeah but you're either gonna do you some people wind up drinking or not i went the other way you were like nope i want to stay in charge of me yeah and so when you were who were the first comics that you were looking at that made you that brought you some because I imagine

it's the same with you you watch the comics and it made you feel better about life for me it was the first person I looked at going okay this is I'm into this, and this is somebody doing comedy, was Richard Pryor. That first album of a, not his first album, it was 1972,

he did an album called That Nigga's Crazy. Yeah. 72, 73. Right. That album just changed everything for me. I used to sit and listen to it every day, over and over and over and over. And the first six months, I was laughing. And then, you know, you just sit and just listen to it over and over and over and over and over.

Right. And what was the big bit on that record? Which was the bit that made you like that you couldn't get out of your head? The whole album. The whole album. The Wino and Dracula. You ever hear that one? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, he just goes, hey. album the whole album the why the why no and dracula you ever hear that one yeah yeah yeah

no he's gonna say hey you fool you peeping in the windows people in the windows people's window you with the cape what you doing peeping in the people's window what's your name fool dracula yeah you ugly motherfucker yeah what kind of name is that right right what kind of name is that what kind of name is that for nigga where you from true Transylvania yeah I know where it is you ain't the smartest motherfucker in the world but you is the ugliest oh yeah you ugly motherfucker why don't you get your teeth fixed

nigga shit hanging all out your mouth why don't you get your orthodontist that's a dentist you know that laugh so that was it man that was the thing that Why don't you get your orthodontist? That's a dentist, you know. That laugh. So that was it, man. That was the thing that blew your mind. Blew my mind.

And I had seen, you know, watched Sullivan and seen, you know, Colin and seen all that stuff. Flip Wilson. Loved Flip Wilson when I was a kid. Everybody loved Flip Wilson. Geraldine. He had his own show, man. He had his own show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the biggest shows. Yeah, it's great. Everybody would be on that show. I loved him. I thought he was hysterical. But I never thought of, you know, when I would see him do stand up, it wasn't like, I was like, oh yeah, that's when I saw Richard. That's when it was like, yo,

I'm that. I'm him. I'm this. I'm this thing. It always amazes me too. Like when I watch Richard now, like the, the vulnerability of the guy, like the guy was so like, when you learn about him, about his, like, you know, there was always his broken heart was always right under the surface, you know, and you could always feel the humanity of the guy.

It's kind of of it's amazing. Doesn't matter what the bit was. It was just like he was all in, man. The real deal. And when did you start? Like, what else did you start putting together to start thinking about how you were going to approach it other than Richard? Well, when I first started doing it, it was it was mostly impressions. That's the easiest.

That's the easiest way to get on stage is doing impressions. Because if you sound like it, that's it. You don't have to have a personality. You don't have to have any jokes. Just sound like the person that you're doing. So I was always a good mimic. So that's how I, when I first, I used to do, I would do Richard. I would do Muhammad.

Back then, this is how long ago it was. I would do Jimmy Carter because he was the president. And I would do Ali and Cosell, all that stuff that they would do on the Wide World of Sports. I would do all of that stuff. Al Green and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was always really, really good at doing voices. And that's how you started to do the...

That's how I started getting on stage. The open mics. Doing... Actually, there was no open mics back then. Back then, they used to have... Remember the gong show in the 70s? Yep. Well, the bars used to have gong show night.

So you would find different gong show nights. I would go to the gong show nights. Win $25. But you got some chops. So when do you head into the city i mean how does that take place and what's your what's your parents thinking about it well my parents don't really know how much they don't know the extent of it like they know that i'm doing some stuff but they don't know that you know okay by by 11th grade i'm like you know i'll get i'll go say i'm staying over at my uh friend clint's house yeah and i'll go to the comic strip you know yeah yeah and then the next day miss school and shit by 12th grade i was like she didn't know how to the extent of it but

they never were tripping about it because they didn't know about it then when i started making some some paper it was it was all good and that's i started making money from it really early i got on snl when i'm 19 but the year before that i'm kind of like a working comic i'm like working regularly all the little whatever little spots they were doing one-nighters with joey vega maybe fred stoller you know denny stoller yes yes absolutely i did did the comic strip in Fort Lauderdale with Fred Stoller. Yeah. We went jet skiing. You and Fred?

Yeah, he fell off the jet ski. Because it was making him nauseous. Who were the other guys that were there? Was Dennis Wolfberg there? Who was there? Dennis Wolfberg, absolutely. Absolutely,? Was Dennis Wolfberg there? Who was there? Dennis Wolfberg, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Dennis Wolfberg, yes.

He used to crush every night. Wolfberg. Who was it? Steve Middleman. Steve Middleman, no chin. He has no chin. Yes. Yeah.

I have no chin. That was just killer bit. Yeah, that was the whole bit. I actually was in a big laugh-off in the 1980s. 80, 79, 80 with Steve Middleman. He won. I came in fifth. Oh, my.

I came in fifth. Middleman came in first. I think Carol Leifer came in second. Carol. And Mark Schiff. Mark Schiff. Mark Schiff came in. He came in third.

Won't work on Fridays. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah, he became orthodox. He doesn't, you know, Mark Schiff is orthodox. There was a became orthodox he doesn't he yeah he mark shift is orthodox there's a couple orthodox guys back then so you came in fifth and you but you were like 17 18 yeah so at 18 you're doing those one-nighters and jersey and shit and like running around and by the time i'm 18 there's a little bit of a circuit when i started there was no when i'm, there was no, when I'm 15, there's no, there's like, you know, gong show night in bars.

Then by the time I'm 18, you got little, like a lot of places are having comedy nights. And there's a little bit of a circuit that you can go. And there's clubs you can go to. You can go to Philly and work the comedy works. Or you can go to D.C. and work work garvin's grill so you're doing all that at 18 yeah yeah so you're meeting all the guys you're meeting all the old weirdos and you know you you're digging you're becoming a comic so you're learning about all the but you know what it's not it's not it wasn't like it it was like uh there wasn't a lot of comics. Smaller community. Yeah, it was such a small community.

And it was like now being a comic is like a mainstream thing in show business. There's thousands of comics. But back then it was just a handful. Back then it was like being a magician or a mime or some shit. It was you and Stoller and Middleman. There was a few more than that. Gilbert Gottfried. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was the genius of that period. He was the one where all the comics would go watch him every time he was up. Did you like him? Absolutely. Still, he makes me laugh. He was like, and that's also, it was specifically New York. There was definitely a New York thing, and then people eventually came out to L.A., but I imagine, like, I guess most of the guys who started, like, Belzer was already gone, and those guys were already gone.

Yeah, Belzer had left. But just a year or two before I got out there, Belzer. So when you were doing the work, people were saying, like, oh, that guy used to be at the club here, and now he's in L.A. Everyone kind of go to L.A., right? Richard Lewis, all those people. Yeah, those guys were older than me, so I was... Gone. I didn't know those group of guys.

And those guys were established comics back like those guys were serious real deal comics. We didn't even think of ourselves like... You remember Lucian? Lucian the Hole, yeah. I remember when I auditioned at the comic strip, he says, Oh, I already have enough angry white guys.

He told me, your material's horrible, but you've got very strong stage presence. Thank you. Your material's horrible. So how did it unfold? So you're doing comedy, you're paying your dues, and you got an hour in 1980 when you're 17, 18, you got an hour? No, back then, people weren't doing it. and you got what you got an hour in 1980 when you're 17 18 you got an hour no they didn't back then people weren't doing what the hour richard made that popular right before then it wasn't have an hour you had a tight 10 and you had your shit that you had to work in front of you know if

you got on a tonight show right if you got the merv griffin or something like that but you know nobody was doing an hour a big gig back then was opening for people so you needed 10 15 minutes of killer shit so nobody's doing an hour like richard pryor is richard pryor in concert right that kind of changed the whole comedy landscape that became this the stint the standard way the comic you know the the headline comic is bringing an hour of shit richard started that i remember seeing that when i was in high school it would change my entire life jesus christ yeah richard is richard is richard is the uh what marlon brando is to acting richard is to to stand up comedy how did you end up being managed by richie and and then getting snl was

that all or through the comic strip well yeah I was started work the comic strip was the easiest club to get in uh because it's still real clickish with comics yeah and back then all the comics kind of booked the clubs so it was really really clickish so right it was impossible it's impossible to get on and catch. Tell me about it. The improv was kind of snooty. And so the comic strip was the easiest place to work out. That's funny because it's still like that. The comic strip was always kind of the working class. It wasn't the celebrity hole.

It wasn't like an old-timey New York hole. But it was for new young guys. It's always been like that, the comic strip. It's still like that? I haven't been there in years. It was just a place where a lot of guys from the Island, a lot of working class comics could, could work,

you know? Well, that's, that's how we got in there. I went, literally went down and got online and got the ticket and did the whole thing and audition. And Lucien told me,

you know, my act is terrible, but you have presence. I was hanging out at the comic strip, getting those 2 o'clock spots. 2 o'clock spots. Yeah, those 2 a.m. spots. Yeah. And those kind of spots never bothered me.

They'd go up really, really late when it was silly. Yeah. Nine people. Yeah. And you're playing for whoever you're hanging out with is in the back. Yeah. I always liked that.

I was doing those spots enough that when they, Saturday Night Live had their, they did like when the original cast left, they even put like a cattle call and you know, they were looking for everywhere. Right. One day I went to the comic strip and Tinkin was like yeah saturday night live is looking for a black guy you should go down and set up an audition for me okay they need a black guy what's he your manager then

no no back then he just owned the club he just owned the comic strip yeah and uh him and him and bob wax yeah bob wax yeah i went down and got got this show and uh maybe a year and maybe a year into it they started managing me and did you do that just because like all right well you know these guys know me i work at their club no i was 19 i thought you know richie was you know, one of the major player back then. He owned a comedy club and Bob Wax was a lawyer. I was like, I'm going to need a lawyer. My lawyer and my manager together. So with

SNL, everything turned around really quickly, right? Like you became big quick. Hindsight being 2020, yeah. But back then it didn't feel quick because i was 19 so you know just it just felt like you know uh how can i even it didn't feel quick but it just felt like uh this is how it happens yeah this is how it happens right right right you had nothing to compare it to

so you're like i do comedy i I'm funny. Let's go. And then I got that. And again, this is what happened. That's exactly what it was like. I totally took it for granted. So when do you decide like, like, because I, I, I immerse myself in some stuff because I to see like what was the pressure that you felt almost immediately you know from you know once i guess it was um 48 hours which was the the one that kind of blew it all open that's the first one 48 hours yeah so on snl you become this huge hit with all these characters and people love you and then you do the movie and i have to assume that pretty quickly you realize you miss uh doing comedy for strangers no what happened was that was the way it was that was the way that it was with that show was like i think chevy chase was on there first yeah

it was like you do this show and then you can get to do movies you know you build up a fan base and get people in the day you can go off and make movies. And that's what I thought the blueprint was. Oh, so you knew that. Well, I didn't know that. I was looking like, okay, now it's time to – I got offered these movies. The movie was a big hit. I had the other one, Trading Places, was coming.

I had been on the show three years. It was like, okay, I could go make movies now. So I was moving on because i was like that that's what you that's what you do right and you're in your mind and and i think rightfully so you're like this is how show business works this is exactly well this is how it works when you're on saturday night live that's what i was thinking and you were like the biggest star in like in the world and i've just like i can't, it's so weird to me. Here's what I got to, I got to bring up only because it's sort of bothered me that like early on when you became huge and you were doing like Carson and there was, you know, there was something about your confidence and your, your knowledge of, you know, who you were and what you were capable of

that kind of rose above, you transcended that format but it was just sort of interesting that these guys you kept bringing it up over and over again on these talk shows like why are you asking me these certain questions because you know why are you asking me how did i get big so quickly why are you asking me about what i'm doing with my money about my watch yeah yeah yeah that it was there specifically this list of black questions that these guys. And what I found when watching it is that there was sort of a weird kind of innate bias. It just happened in the questions they were asking. Oh, no. And it wasn't weird.

It was the 80s. It was a whole different world back then. Yeah. It was the old world back then still. Like the 70s and the 60s it wasn't that far removed from that right right so it's like sensibilities and you know and perceptions and what you could say and what you could there was no politically incorrect you could say whatever you could do jokes you could do the the polish jokes and you could say all kind you could do

everything back then but did you feel like they were trying to box you? Yeah, go ahead. Not boxed in, it was, you know, I was saying, I was calling for what it was when they would do something. I never felt boxed in. Right. But I was like, I wasn't surprised by it because those were the times. Yeah.

And I was an anomaly. It was like, the reason I blew up in films was because I'm the first I'm the first African-American to like the character in the movie to to go into the white world and take charge in the world. Yeah, that was because usually the black character up until charge in the world. Yeah. Because usually the black character up until then, the black character is the sidekick. Yeah. The black sidekick. But my character shows up.

In the first movie, it's written like the sidekick. But if you watch the movie, he's not the sidekick. He's the whole movie. Nick Nolte's going, now what do we do, convict? What's our next move? Where do we go now? Tell me now. What happened now?

I'm going, we go this way, we go that way. And they found that funny. Like that was some shit that we just stumbled onto. It wasn't intentional. It was like back then they used to say, he stole the scene. He stole the scene. Literally, this is not written for him to be like that. He stole the scene.

But they thought that was really, really funny. They accused you of stealing. They accused you like that kid. Well, they know it wasn't written like that. It's like you've got Nick Nolte, he's 6'3", blonde hair, blue eyed, leading man. And they're watching me in the scene, so must have stolen it it wasn't written like this do you think that was uh do you think that perception was racist not at all they hadn't seen it up until then they hadn't seen it so it was this new thing so you carve this

you carve this this zone for yourself you you know i didn't carve it i just that's the way it worked out i wasn't carving it it's like it's it's not like you the the path that you wind up on you carve the path it's more it's much more like that fucking uh that feather in forest gunk where you're floating around and you know and you wherever you go and that's it so this is where i blew in this direction. Right. And it turned out like that. When did you start having a friendship with Richard?

When did you meet Richard? We never had a friendship. Richard's like my dad's age. Yeah. And Richard, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't do any drugs, I didn't do any of that stuff. So we were not in the same social orbit. But when I met him, he was just as an artist,

he was super, super nice to me. I met him coming from Atlanta and he was on the plane and he was on the seat in front of me. And the stewardess told me when I was getting on the plane, she was like, Mr. Pryor is on the plane. I was like, Mr. Pryor is on the plane I was like Mr. Pryor I was like ah ah and I had my first comedy record on a

cassette I went up to her I said Mr. Pryor I'm Eddie Murphy I'm the comedian he said oh yeah I know who you are I said here's my record could you listen to it and he was sitting up and he had my headphones on and I was in the back watching his head and he would go ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha He had headphones on and I was in the back watching his head. And he would go.

And I'm in the back like. That's great. Go up to him and he said, he said, you are very funny. And he said, you remind me of me. You make me think of me. And I did it. Then when the plane lands, he goes, where are you staying? And I was like, I'm staying at Mandeville Canyon. And he was like, how many years have you lived home?

The guy drove his car. I met him at the airport. He had a white Rolls. And he drove me up to the place I was staying. Imagine, that's the first time you meet your idol. You meet him like that. You meet him like that. He listens to he listens he's laughing at your shit and then he drives you home and he's nice to you was like wow that's the first way that's how i met richard to get that sort of validation like you remind me of me and then you kind of look back at you know you know you're you

know you're kind of the next in line right it? It turns out. I wasn't thinking of it like that. No, no, I know. I wasn't thinking of it. And I wasn't thinking. I was just thinking, like, I made Richard laugh. Yes. And, oh, shit. And he actually drove me home. I was, like, fucked up. Like, I was, like, floating from it.

And then he, we just, like, back then, Richard was the biggest, you know, biggest comedy star in movies and all that stuff. And like I said, he was older than me, so we didn't really hang out or anything. But did you have sort of multiple, before Harlem Nights, did you have like a lot of time did you spend with him?

Were you able to spend time with him at all? Well, Richard used to, when Richard would go at the, play down at the comedy store, all the comics would come down, you know down and sit in the back and watch. Did you used to do the comedy store? When I was in L.A., absolutely. If Richard Pryor was at the comedy store, everybody goes and just sits in the back.

And I had a bunch of nights like that. And then afterwards, he'd be in the main room, holding court and all theians are sitting around late. So I did a bunch of that. I was a doorman there for a couple years back in 86. And, yeah, there was that. I used to see Mooney all the time. And Pryor started coming in after he burned himself up, know trying to put it back together you know

and I got to see him a couple times I met him after he had went through all that shit oh really? I met him after he was burnt up and was getting it together I never met that Richard right no when I saw him it was rough

because like he would you know it was amazing about him and I'm sure you know, it is like you would see him struggle. I mean, you could he would go up there sometimes and just like have a hard time for like a half an hour. And then he just chip away and build that shit out. Like, you know, he would just take the hit and take the hit until it started to make sense. It was kind of amazing i think that it was like that after he burned up and was trying to like still do it and do it sober right i think it was harder to put it together when he was sober it was harder to do uh and when he wasn't sober that's when it's

like you know yeah right when it's like what the fuck. Yeah, right. When it's like, what the fuck? Yeah, where is it coming from? Yeah, but that's when it was effortless. Before he was, you know, before he was sober, it was effortless. Yeah. And that's when people, you would see Richard and they would say,

oh, you see him do an hour and then you see him a week later and he'd do a whole nother hour of shit you never heard. Back then, he was like that guy. So when you did um delirious and you had you know you worked out that hour and a half on the road you did it richard style well i had i had been doing stand-up what's funny was when i got on snl uh people didn't like i said there's no kind of no real comedy circuit back then no where you're on tv and all that so people didn't know i did stand up

yeah so when i popped up in delirious that was like out of nowhere that was like out of nowhere it was like whoa what the fuck is this really absolutely it was like we i he does stand up no one had a clue oh my god it's like a secret weapon yeah it was out of nowhere. I showed up in a red leather suit doing all this shit. It was like, what the fuck? Oh, man. And so now you've got that profile just raises. So now you're this movie guy. You're SNL guy. Now you're the stand-up guy.

And it seemed like there was a point. What was the thing with Dick Cavett, dude? Were you guys really friends? It seems like you really had some weird relationship with Dick Cavett. Yeah, I used to hang out with Dick Cavett, dude? Were you guys really friends? It seems like you really had some weird relationship with Dick Cavett. Yeah, I used to hang out with Dick Cavett a lot. I did a lot of stuff with Dick Cavett. What? He would pop up.

I don't even know when that was the first time. Yeah. But he would just pop up. Like, you would, like, be, you know, backstage SNL, and Dick Cavett would just pop up and say, how are you? Yeah. He'd say,

hey, Dick, and you start talking. And he would do, he was always, he's a guy, if you dare him to do anything,

he would do it. Yeah. So we, I got into, I got into these things where I was daring him to do, like we went to go see

Diana Ross at the Garden. Yeah. And Dick Cavett, I'd say, I dare you to go up on the stage and grab Diana Ross' ass. Yeah. He just says, why are you doing this to me? And then he gets up and walks and goes.

And you're sitting. And then you see Dick Cavett coming from the side on the stage. And Diana Ross said, oh, Dick Cavett. And he came in and he started hugging her and dancing with her. And then he put his hand on her ass and he came back. So he was that guy. And so that became our relationship. I dare you to do this, I dare you to do that.

Oh my God. And then once we were at SNL, and that dude, Eddie Grant from, he made that song. We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue. Yeah, all the dreadlocks. Okay, so they come to Saturday Night Live and the whole dressing room was all people with dreadlocks. This was back in the early days before, you know, dreadlocks

was popular. So everybody was kind of like scared. And Dick Cavett was like, well, look at their hair. And I was like, yeah. He says, how did they get their hair like that? I said, I don't know. He said, someone told me that they use goat shit in their hair to get it that way. And I said, hell no. I said, I dare you to go into the dressing room

and ask them, does he put goat shit in his hair? And he goes, why are you doing this to me? He walks down the hallway and he goes and I'm standing in the doorway. He goes into the makeup room and all these Jamaicans are standing around and he walks up to Eddie Grant. And he goes, he stands next to me. Eddie Grant is here. He goes, he starts a little conversation. He goes, your hair is so interesting.

How do you get your hair like that? And he goes, the guy tells him, we just do this whatever he says how we do he says really because someone told me that you use goat shit to get your hair like that and the room goes quiet and he looked at him and said no man that's not true then cavit looks at me and says why'd you tell me that walked away and left me standing in the fucking door. So he would pop up. He would come to my house and stay for the weekend. Really?

He would just pop up. Yeah, he would just pop up and be like, hey, then you're hanging out with Dick Cavett. It's so funny that you had this weird relationship with Dick Cavett. Yeah, he would pop up. I've been around Dick Cavett quite a bit. I've been to concerts. I've been to the Sumo match. The Sumo match with Dick Cavett. Do you. I've been to concerts, been to the Sumo match with Dick Cavett. Do you talk to him still?

Is he alright? I haven't seen Dick Cavett in about 10, 15 years. Who do you keep in touch with from the old days? Anybody? You know, the older... I found the older that I get, the smaller my circle of friends gets. And the friends that I get, the smaller my circle of friends get.

Yeah. You know, and the friends that I do have, the few friends that I still do have, they're like friends from, you know, 30, 40 years. Is Fruity still around? Nah, he's been out of the picture. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I was watching old TV shows. That's the dude I went to high school with.

But some of the cats you hang out with they're old time like I noticed in the new movie you got you pulled back everybody you got everybody back in there

Sweetwater the dude one of the barbers in the show the guy that's not Arsenio the other guy Sweetwater yeah

he's my best friend from high school really we're not still like that but when we were in high school we were like best buddies. He was in a bunch of stuff. He was on Saturday Night Live,

sketches. He's in the very first movie in 48 hours when Nick Nolte comes and gets me out of the cell. That's Sweetwater in there. In trading places when I'm in the cell,

I'm saying, I'm a karate man, dude. Sweetwater's the one that goes, yeah, it's a phone. His limo was busted. What are you, ignorant? Yeah, yeah, that guy. That's the guy. He's coming to America Sweetwater's the one that goes, yeah, it's a phone, his limo was busted. What are you, ignorant? Yeah, yeah, that guy. Yeah, that's the guy.

He's coming to America. He's the other barber and he was in this one too. And also, Louis Anderson, I noticed, is back. Yeah. Louis Anderson

in the dashiki. Yeah. The movie is worth seeing just to see Louis Anderson in the dashiki. Well, you know, honestly, I was thinking about

the first one, you know, and trying to put it together. Because it seemed to me that, like, over a period of time, even though, you know, everything was going good for you and you were amassing a lot of leather clothes. But, like, it seemed to me like the original, the first coming to America, like could have been, I always got the feeling as I watched the appearances over time that you started to be resentful of being trapped by, not your own success, but just that, you just seemed to be sort of angry about maybe the visibility or the expectation or what? What do you look at, when you look back,

what do you think you were pissed off about? I don't know. I don't know that I was ever pissed off. I've never been. You don't feel like you were pissed off? No. How old was I? We're talking about when I'm in my 20s?

Yeah, yeah. It just felt like, you know, like by the time Raw comes out, like I imagine it would have to be hard to know what you were really, if people were just reacting to you, your celebrity or to what you were doing. You know what I mean? I imagine. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of the reasons why I stopped doing standup because it'd be, it'd turn, become like, it was like, uh, you couldn't really tell how funny it was like, am I funny?

Or is this like, you know like some Pavlovian shit? You see me and you just think you're laughing. So it was like, I remember one night I was at, I don't know, a comedy store, comic strip, and I get on stage and the audience is like, before you do anything,. And I was like, what the fuck? And it was like, what the fuck? What the fuck? And I was like, so I don't have to do nothing.

I can just stand here and you fuckers just laugh. What the fuck? What the fuck? And I was like, so I don't have to do nothing. I can just stand here and you fuckers just laugh. And I just stood there for like 10 minutes. And I killed. Just didn't say anything. I was just standing there. People were like, oh! I'd be a little quiet.

And then I'd look around. And then the laugh would come again. And for 10 minutes, I was able to just look around and just make a stupid face and go. And I was getting laughs doing that. And I was like, hey, you know what? It's time to take a little break. Yeah. It's time to take a little break from it. Right.

Hey, you know what? I tell you what. Now, that's, everybody has that. Now, doing comedy is so mainstream that the audience knows, you know, it's like, you're the comic. Think how many times you see somebody doing shit, and they're not funny,

but the audience knows, this is where I laugh. It's never silent. I don't care how bad the comic is, it's never silent. They get something. They say something, laugh. So everybody has that problem now. That's why you gotta, you know, you gotta go by what you you think is funny and what your gut is and what if it makes you laugh and that's but if you try to you know figure these fuckers out because they're just laughing at whatever you say right and then it's fundamentally like the one thing

that used to be satisfying because you you know you know you did something you can't trust it right so that's got to be fucking frustrating you know what i mean like you know you know you did something you can't trust it right so that's got to be fucking frustrating you know what i mean like you know if i can just sweep through this and you guys are gonna laugh i mean what the fuck am i doing up here exactly so i stopped doing it but i didn't get frustrated by it i was like hey you know y'all ain't this is not what it was so i'm gonna do i'm gonna be i'm gonna talk to animals now. I'm Dr. Doolittle. But didn't you just – you tried to push – but it felt like there was a couple moments in Raw and a couple moments on TV shows where you were like trying to push them a little bit,

trying to defy them to laugh at you. You know what I mean? I'm going to act this way to see how much you guys will take. Oh, no. If I came across like that, I was just being a real asshole at the moment. You got to remember, my shit jumped off really, really big, and I'm a really young guy. Yeah.

You know. You're right. There's a lot young guy. Yeah. So, you know. You're right. There's a lot of stuff that I have to navigate. Sure. Literally have to, you know, go through this minefield. Right, right. To get to, you know, this moment. To get to the moment you're at now?

Just to get through, you know, that whole being in your 20s and being famous and, you know, that's. Sort of 20s and being famous. You know, that's... Sort of. It's amazing, though. A vicarious journey. Yeah, but you've held it. You've held the vessel together. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say, though.

It seemed like at that time, like, Stan, if you'd had enough of it, it seemed like coming to America, the first one was almost like a personal fantasy film. The idea that maybe, you know, I could go someplace where no one knew me and just be a regular person. Yeah, that's the premise

of the movie. On the tour bus I got the idea. And it's a fairy tale. Wouldn't it be nice? But it was a passing thought. This new one, who wrote it? Who wrote it with you? When I got

the idea, i went back and got the original writers barry blousey and david sheffield who wrote the original yeah and uh we talked it and got like a structure they're really good at getting your story structure and uh so we got that together then i got uh we brought in Kenya Barris from Black-ish. Yeah, I talked to that guy. He's a smart guy. He's funny, huh? Yeah, we brought him in, and he made it a coming-to-America-ish.

Yeah. Because we got the older writers with the structure, and he was like the new hot shot, and I was in the middle. It took four years, but we got a good script. The story's great i mean and you know it's it's almost like a all ages kind of movie thing you know what i mean it's almost yeah man it's like uh it could almost be like a like a classic fantasy movie yeah but it took four years to get that script like that and it was different it was a bunch of different stuff

what how does how did it evolve what was was the problems? It wasn't problems. It was, you know, originally when I was writing, when I got the idea, Tracy Morgan was going to be my son. So we were writing for Tracy Morgan. And in the original script, I didn't, it wasn't that I had a son.

It was what happened was I was going, I think we wanted, I wanted to take other wives. Yeah. It was like we picked up with a story and I wanted to take other wives. And it was like, oh, no, I make them hate him. And so we wrote a version like that. Then we didn't like that.

Then we wrote, like, kept, you know, every time we finished a draft, we'd be like, this isn't right, but this little chunk right here, it works. And we kept doing that to where, you know, we had a bunch of chunks that worked. Right. And what really made it, what really made it was, I saw, this is when the narrative came together. When we saw, I saw, I think it was one of those Schwarzenegger movies, the Terminator movie, where they made him look young and he showed up and he looked like the old Schwarzenegger. And I was like, what the fuck? That looks so real. And I was like, yo, that's when I saw that.

You could take that make you look young shit and we could go and make another scene where that scene we were out in the club looking for chicks. We could say later on that night, we used that young special effect. And that's when the whole story clicked together. And we got that little piece. Oh, technology.

Open the door. Yeah, open the door to the story. It's so funny that you even got those twins back for a couple, for 30 seconds. And we got them. And that's the original sexual chocolate. Those are the original sexual chocolate members. Oh, the band? That's all original members.

That guy. You know that guy. Yeah, he makes me laugh the most of all the characters. I have a lot of that in movies. I have a lot of movies where I'm singing stupid. The donkey in Shrek is always singing. I got a lot of scenes in movies where I'm singing bad. I've kind of worn that joke out, but it always makes me laugh when someone's doing that.

Randy Watson is the king of it. Randy Watson, as a character, it's almost like somebody you know from show business. I mean, there's plenty of Randy Watsons out there, man. Yeah, especially locally. Every local town has it. What do they say? What do they introduce

them in the first? You know them as Joda Policeman from the What's Going Down episode of That's My Mama. It's a bunch of guys that had little roles like that. And now they're in the local town, local celebrity. Yeah. It's like comedy is full of those fucking people, man. Yeah. I really like the movie. And I thought Leslie and Tracy were amazing.

Amazing. I mean, Leslie Jones, she is like so raw and natural, and when she can just do her thing, it's like, holy shit. So funny, man. And Tracy's such a, you know, it's nice. You kind of got, he controlled himself for that movie. I was very happy. He focused.

Well, he got a, he has a, like I said, we worked on that script for four years. So he's got a script. Everybody that's on it has a, you know, they got a well, you know, worked out character. Yeah. Good words. And he got, and Craig Brewer, the brain director. So you got to, you know, it was easy to focus and to do it.

And your daughter's in it? Yeah, my baby girl is in it. Oh, yeah, man. Was that the first time you worked with her as an actress? That's the first time any of my kids have been in any of my stuff. And, yeah, that was the first. And I can't even put into words what's that like. If you have kids, you know, you go see your kid at something at school.

Right. And it'll fill you up. Your kid could paint something and put it in the refrigerator and eyes get wet from that. So imagine going to work and your baby girl is at your job with you and she's contributing to what's going on. And she's doing a good job too. And she's got fight scenes and doing all those karate fight scenes.

Every day I was just filled up every day. That's beautiful. Every day. She's doing a good job too. Yeah. And she's got fight scenes and doing all those karate fight scenes and stuff. Every day, I was just filled up every day. That's beautiful. Every day. Yeah, man. Can I ask you about when you talk about Randy Watson and we talk about these movies, what was it that made you want to tell Rudy Ray Moore's story? I thought from the beginning.

First of all, I used to watch his movies all the time you did because uh oh yeah because i'm i watch move i'm a i watch a lot of stuff yeah and i don't watch just uh just the classic stuff i watch the classic stuff and i and i love the stuff that's so bad it's good yeah those movies right the movies that are so bad, I love movies like that. And Rudy Ray Moore was that. As a kid, even before I thought like that, I love So Bad, It's Good, I was a fan of Rudy Ray Moore's movies because of that when I was a kid. And when his movies were coming out, we would all go and we would laugh at seeing the microphone come into the shot and the certain way you would hit certain lines.

We thought it was a stare. We knew it was bad back then. As kids, we knew it was horrible. Right. But it was funny. And we would argue, even as a kid, I would argue that he's trying to be funny. Yeah. And they would say, no, no, he's not trying.

He's serious. And I would say, no, he's not serious. He's trying to be funny. and that's why we're laughing and they would be like nah he's still he's serious they were laughing thinking that he was serious it was so bad i was like no we're supposed to be laughing it's no way that we're not supposed to be laughing yeah even as a kid yeah so i was always a fan of his and uh then i thought he had this great stranger than fiction story. So we tried to get it done. It was back in the 90s when I first tried to get it done.

I went to Rudy. But no studio was making a Rudy Ray Moore movie back then. It was like not happening. Then, you know, into Netflix 10 years, 15 years later. And then it was a place where, you know, make the movie. So it was really about a guy who was committed to his vision and made it happen. Absolutely.

Rudy Ray Moore is another reason why he's a kind of fascination for me is his career is like the exact polar opposite of my career. Like the way he came on and what he had to do and how hard it was for him to get in. And, you know, it's like we did the same thing same thing we're both doing comedy we both do music stuff we both you know went to the movies but he had such a hard time getting in there and i was the sensation and he was you know struggling and everything so he was you know fascinating in that respect and then i had once i got into the movie business i had a a newfound appreciation and respect when I found out that he put his movies together and that he would finance out of his own pocket.

He was like this guerrilla filmmaker. He wasn't just a nut. This guy really was trying to get it done. So I was like, this guy's a great movie. Just like Ed Wood is a great movie about this in an ed woodsy and kind of way yeah i thought his story story would be great so i literally went and got the writers that wrote ed wood to write the really dolomite yeah that those guys wrote it yeah i thought it was great man and you didn't but you didn't really you didn't know

rudy nah different world different different universe i met him a couple of times, but I didn't know him. Where'd you meet him? The very first time I met him was on downtown LA. We was doing 48 Hours. I heard somebody say, get your hands off me. And then somebody said, I look like Rudy Ray Moore. And I said, that is Rudy Ray Moore. And he was real. He must have been smoking or something.

He was really skinny and looked like a homeless person. And I took some pictures with him and shit. I was like really skinny and looked like a homeless person. I took some pictures with him and shit. I was like, wow. Then I would see him. He would do little gigs in L.A. like at the Lingerie every now and then. He would play there on Sunset. And the last place I seen him was Stevie's on the Strip

in Ventura Boulevard like in the 90s. Yeah. So whenever he was another one, like we would go see Richard because it was Richard. Whenever he was in town, all the comics would go and sit around. And Rudy Ray Moore was the same. With the black comics, we would go, me and Kenan and Arsenio and Robert Townsend. When Rudy Ray Moore came to town, we would go to wherever he was and sit in the back and be fucking screaming.

It was funny. It was Rudy Ray Moore. He would go up to a woman and say, girl, close your legs before I eat off your drawers. And then we'd go, I'm going to eat off your drawers, woman. We were like. What about, did you ever see Redd Foxx? Not live. He was something, huh?

Yeah, but he was something on the set of Harlem Nights. On the set of Harlem Nights, you got Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, me, Robin Harris. Oh, Robin. Yeah, my brother Charlie, my uncle Ray. And it was just raucous. Arsenio, just raucous laughter. Like the funniest shit happened off camera. Oh.

Always laughing. We're always laughing red fox is at the center of it red fox is the funniest just naturally funny sit in the room just naturally funny not trying to be funny yeah it's funny everything that comes out of his mouth yeah funny yeah just reeks it that's red fox he just reeks funny he exudes itlessly yeah just just not not even trying he could be not even in a he could not even be he could be mad and everything he does is he says he says it turns into comedy that the whole room is screaming he was that guy i love that like you know that you know you're so rooted in stand-up like uh you know because because i love that i know that you met rodney early on oh yeah

he gave you that i i heard about that to me is the greatest story because every old comic if you're dirty some old comic's gonna come up to you and go hey what are you doing kid you got to clean it up yeah you know and rodney i was weird for him to be like that with me because he wasn't like that with people like Kenison, those guys. He championed them. When he saw me, he was like, hey, kid, you know, you got to clean your show up, kid. I'll tell you. And then you ran into him later? Yeah. It was before Saturday Night Live.

Yeah. I ran into him after, like, three years after that. Yeah. At the bathroom at Caesar's. Well, the first night it happened, he told me, you know, like, you know, I went to the comic strip in Fort Lauderdale to do this a weekend, and Dangerfield pops up. Yeah.

And it was like, Dangerfield's bumping everybody. Yeah. And I was like, oh, Dangerfield pops up. Yeah. And it was like, Dangerfield's bumping everybody. Yeah. And I was like, oh, Dangerfield goes up and bumps. And I'm like, Mr. Dangerfield, will you watch my set? Because I wanted to go up because I knew I was going to kill. Yeah. So I go up after Dangerfield and I crushed it. Yeah.

Dangerfield's like, yeah, you know, kid, it's okay. You know, you say that nigger stuff, you know, you use a lot of foul language. Where are you going to go with that, kid? You know, clean it up and stop using that word. I was like, what the fuck? Wow. Thanks. Then I, you know, forgot about it. Then a year later, I got Saturday Night Live.

Two years go by. Then I'm at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. I'm at the urinal and Dangerfield comes in and he's right next to me and I look over, it's Dangerfield he looks at me and says, hey, who knew? It was like perfectly timed like a perfectly timed joke that he even remembered

that he even remembered that he told because I'm just one of a thousand comics, you know, that he even remembered and he didn't think much of my show back then, but he even remembered right and he didn't think much of my show back then but he even hey that's a kid and that he even remembered that he would come in and hit that like it was written right it was like tagged it three years later boom perfect perfect so what's gonna happen man what's gonna happen with uh you know there was some i read some bit that you told about that i thought was kind of beautiful that you you know in terms of your

your the sort of the the the arc of the comedy history that you say you said that groucho informed cosby cosby informed richard richard informed you you know that there's this through line did i say informed no no no i'm saying that. Inspired. The engine. The engine of Cosby was Groucho. The engine of Pryor was Cosby. And the engine of Eddie is Pryor, right? More than the engine. It's like the engine of those other people, it might have been like that. But then when it's Richard, Richard changes it.

It's not like you just become your engine because she was influenced by him. Richard restructures the whole thing. Right. And it's not just me. He changes everything. He takes it from black and white to in color, the whole art form. He changes. He takes the ceiling and puts it up here.

Comics used to just stand there and tell their shit into the mic you know with their little suede patches on their elbow and richard is the one that made it three-dimensional and used the whole stage and so he opens it up how you can perform and he opens up subject matter he opens it up he just opens it up or he he makes the canvas like this big giant thing and we were you know working on a stool right and he made it yeah everybody just he's like no you could do this richard changed so it wasn't he wasn't just my engine he like changed like i said he's the he's brand what brando was as an actor brando showed up and changed everything that's what richard was so are you like are you gonna go

back are we gonna are you gonna do hour again? You think after the plague? The plan was, because I had stopped making movies in 2011, I was like, let me take a break from movies. I was making shitty movies. And it was like, this shit ain't fun. Yeah. They're giving me Razzies. I think the motherfuckers gave me the worst actor ever Razzie.

It was like, hey, maybe it's time to take a break. Maybe I need to me the worst actor ever Razzy. It was like, hey, maybe it's time to take a break. Maybe I need to pull back. Maybe it's time to pull back a little. So I was like, let me take a break from it. And then I was only going to take a break for a year. And all of a sudden, you know, six years go by and I'm like sitting on the couch. And I'm like, hey, you know, I kind of could sit on this couch and not get off it. But I don't want to leave it.

You know, the last bunch of shit they seen me do was bullshit. So I was like, let me get off the couch and do some stuff and remind them that I'm funny. Right. Then if I want to come back to the couch again, I could do that. But so the plan was to go do Dolomite, Saturday Night Live, do Coming to America, and then do stand up and then see how I felt afterwards. But, you know, I was like, then at least they'll know that, you know, I'm funny. Yeah. Again.

Because otherwise, if you sit on the couch, they don't know you're sitting on the couch. They're just thinking, yeah, he fell off. He ain't funny no more or something. Last movie, his last movie, Pluto Nash. Yeah, then he went and hanged and didn't sit on the couch and just thinking yeah he fell off he ain't funny no more or something yeah last movie he did his last movie pluto nash yeah then he went and he didn't sit on the couch wondering what happened i didn't want to leave it there it's like let me go you know so it might happen might happen i we were literally we had dates we had you know we literally we had a tour lined up and we had dates and all that shit and then the pandemic hit you know so now it's like when the world gets back to normal and people can be around

each other put that stuff together i still i still want want the same plan i did everything else all the other stuff came together and you know and now as i still wanted to go and do that. Because I stopped doing stand-up when I'm 28. Wow. I'm 59. I'm going to be 60 in April. So I'm like, I want to bookend it. I want to, it's like. Yeah.

I'm curious to see what it'll be. What will it be like? Because I was a baby when I did it before. It's like, when I get some structure to my little thoughts and go and get on stage and do it again, I want to see what it's going to be like. Wow, man. And it'd be cool. It's kind of like bookend on it. Then if I want to go sit on the couch,

cool. Pick my shots. And when I say sit on the couch, that's a metaphor for just not chasing it. And if something comes along that's amazing, get some opportunity to work with some amazing artists or something, some amazing director, of course I'd get off the couch and do that. But the whole being out there doing three movies a year

and doing all that shit, that shit is over. Yeah, don't need it anymore. George, like I said, I'm going to be 60 in a couple of weeks. I got all these babies. You love it? You love the fatherhood thing? Oh, yeah, man. That 60 in a couple of weeks. I got all these babies. You love it? You love the fatherhood thing? Oh, yeah, man. That's at the center of everything.

That's beautiful. It's nice that you found that and you found it over and over again, 10 times. Over and over, over and over again. And then along the way, I realized that if you put your children first, you never make a bad decision. That's nice. Everything, when you get to wherever, I got to say, okay, well, you got to, you have some crossroads moment,

or you got some shit, okay, well, what's best for my children? If you go that route, you never make the wrong decision. And you get along with all of them? Hey, you know, Mark, I am so blessed with my kids. I don't have one bad seed. I don't have one hey you know mark i am so blessed with my kids i don't have one bad seed i don't

have one you know or you're the one i don't have any and my kids are so great that's great normal people and nobody's hollywood jerk kid none of my kids are so and they're smart and they're trying to do stuff yeah i'm so blessed with my kids. Well, great, man. Really, really got lucky. Well, that's great, man. It's great talking to you, and congratulations on the movie. It was really an honor to speak to you. I've always had a lot of respect for you, and it was fun, man. Oh, thank you, Mark.

Nice talking to you, too, bro. Take care, man. You, too, man. Bye. Stay safe. There you go. Eddie Murphy, what a blast. What a fun thing to just be engaged in talk with Eddie Murphy for an hour.

The movie is coming to number two America. That's a sequel of Coming to America. It's now streaming on Amazon. I will let you know. I will let you know what happened at the Critics' Choice Awards. You're going to know before me if you're listening to this. All right, here's some dirty, rhythmic blues work. Blues work. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives! And Monkey and Lafonda.

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