110“You got to go see this movie.” I think it was The
Human Tornado. He was raving about it. And I saw
the movie, I thought it was funny for all the same rea-
sons everybody thinks it was funny. The movies came
first, then I got his records.
NG: Dolemite was in development for years. What
about it held your interest all this time?
EM: I always thought it was a great story. Like the
Ed Wood story. You know, Rudy Ray Moore developed
this cult following—stoners, rappers. His movies
became one of those movies, you smoke some weed
and watch crazy shit like El Topo and Putney Swope.
NG: I remember going to 42nd Street and see-
ing one of those movies. It starts off with a baby
coming out of a watermelon. Do you know what I’m
talking about?
EM: Yeah, that’s Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s
Son-in-Law. Petey’s mother gives birth, and at first
a watermelon comes out. And then he comes out full
grown with his drawers on and shit. Here is the trip
about Rudy Ray Moore. Even when I was a kid, we
knew it was horrible. We always knew it was crude.
We were laughing at how audacious the shit was. We
couldn’t believe what he was saying. But I knew the
difference between that and Richard Pryor. I started
doing stand-up at 15. So I’m watching Richard when
I’m 13, 14, and I know that’s the real shit. I’m aware
of Cosby. When I see Rudy Ray Moore, it’s how
audacious he was. How edgy. That’s what stuck out
most. And then those poems that he was doing in
the basement for years and years. Like the bottom,
below the triple-X-rated party records. Bums on the
street. Your mama can’t see it, your papa can’t see
it, up against the wall. Rudy Ray Moore was from
that world.
NG: That’s a whole world I’ve never seen in any
movie. It’s a world that even a lot of black people don’t
know about.
EM: I’d say it’s the Chitlin’ Circuit, but it’s below
the Chitlin’ Circuit.
NG: I want to ask about doing stand-up again your-
self. When’s the last time you really did stand-up?
How long ago was it?
EM: When I was 27, 28.
NG: How do you feel about the environment
now? Stand-up comedy is a little bit under attack
these days. Sometimes it’s the woke people versus
stand-up.
EM: It was always like that. Before there was the
#MeToo movement, all this stuff that’s going on,
the woke stuff, whatever y’all are calling it. People
would talk shit, get bent out of shape. I had to apolo-
gize for stuff. And that was, you know, 30 years ago.
Now everybody gets treated the same way. But it’snot like I’m looking at it like, “Oh, now I don’t know
if I can do stand-up because it’s changed.” It’s like, it
changed for everyone else. That’s the way it always
was for me. The difference is now I’m sitting and see-
ing how shit is. So when I put my stuff together, I ain’t
stepping on nobody’s toes, giving nobody reasons to
picket me and all that shit.
NG: I was talking to Chris Rock, and he was com-
plaining about how he’s gone up a couple of times
to develop a bit and people put stuff on the internet
before it’s ready. Your going up onstage is a major
event. Have you thought about your whole strategy
for how you’re going to work on your material?
EM: I’m just going to pop up and do the comedy
clubs. And try to get my shit together. I’m not even
thinking about none of that stuff. Posted shit. It’s not
the same as seeing the whole show put together. And
you can control some of that, get stuff taken down.
You try to, you know, not have that shit happen as
much as you can. But I’m not tripping about it. I’m not
thinking about, “Hey, what’s the audience? What are
they tripping about? Got to be careful or they might
post your jokes.” I’m thinking about how to get a
funny hour and a half.
NG: What made you decide to get back onstage?
EM: I’ve been wanting to get back on the stage for
years, waiting for the right moment. For at least 10
years I’ve been thinking about doing stand-up. And
now it’s like, OK, this is perfect. This Rudy Ray Moore
movie, it’s funny, it will get shit stirred up. Go on
SNL, get shit stirred up a little more. That’s the per-
fect environment.
NG: You’re going back on Saturday Night Live in
December. Are we going to see Gumby? Have you
thought about what you want to do on the show?
EM: I haven’t thought about it yet. We’ll see what
they come up with. But I’ve got all those characters.
Gumby. Mister Robinson. And Buckwheat.
NG: Speaking of SNL , did you see this kid [Shane
Gillis] who just got fired? He didn’t even get on the
show. What are your thoughts about that?
EM: I heard something about that. I don’t watch
the news, I don’t read the newspaper. I’m really dis-
connected. Usually I hear about stuff, that’s how I
find out what’s going on. I’ll go through like two or
three months where I don’t read nothing. Maybe lon-
ger than that, six months of no news, no newspaper.
Nothing. Not paying attention to any of it.
NG: Do you have a computer?
EM: No, I have no computer.
NG: Do you go on Twitter, Instagram, any of that?
EM: No. I’m going to be 60 in two years. I’ve got 10
kids. I’m trying to spend quality time with the fam-
ily. I could give a f— what’s going on, on social media.Nelson George: You ’ re s ho ot i n g Coming 2 Amer-
ica right now.
Eddie Murphy: Yeah, man. Here in Hotlanta.
NG: Prince Akeem is an iconic character. When
you first did Coming to America, for most Americans
Africa was still this exotic place. Now it’s much more
normalized. Is that going to be reflected in the movie?
EM: Coming to America is a fairy tale. So is this
movie. It’s a modern fairy tale. Like you say, the mod-
ern world will be reflected in it, but the method is a
fairy-tale world, as in the Panther movie.
NG: Right, like Black Panther. It seems like you’re
revisiting a lot of stuff from your past. Coming to
America, going back on tour, SNL. Is this a moment
where you’re looking back and forward at the
same time?
EM: More like a bookend. I always wanted to
do stand-up one more time. So I want to get that
done. And with movies, it was like, I don’t want the
last movie I do to be Mr. Church. These things were
in development, Dolemite, Coming 2 America and
Beverly Hills Cop. I’ve been, you know, trying to get
them done for 15 years. Dolemite came together and
it’s like, oh, wow, this is perfect. Once I get back
onstage, I kind of feel like that’s what I was born to do
more than anything. When I get back on the stage, I
can’t imagine wanting to do movies again.
NG: Really? Once you get back into stand-up, the
movie stuff is going to take a back seat?
EM: What I l i ke to do more t ha n a ny t h i n g is ju st be
home with my family, chilling. It’s really easy to feel
like you’re working when you make a movie. You’ve
got to get up at five, six in the morning. I started mak-
ing movies when I was 20 years old, when I made 48
Hrs. That’s f—ing 38 years. You’ve been on a movie
set, you see how this shit is. It’s not a fun process.
Once I get back onstage again, I want to do what-
ever, be funny—I can do that whenever I want to. You
know? But making movies? Being an old dude in the
movies? That’s not it. Let them watch me get old, get
all old looking. Like, “You see Eddie’s new movie? He
looks terrible.”
NG: Let’s talk about Dolemite. I remember those
records from when I was a boy. They were the records
stashed behind the records your parents wanted
you to see. What was your introduction to Rudy
Ray Moore?
EM: My parents didn’t have Dolemite records. [My
brother] Charlie is the first one who told me about
Rudy Ray Moore. And in Roosevelt, Long Island, the
movie theater on Nassau Road would let kids come
in to see R-rated movies. When I was, you know, 12,
13 years old, they just let you come in. Charlie used
to know Rudy Ray Moore, and he came home going,“I’VE BEEN WANTING TO GET BACK ON THE STAGE, WAITING FOR THE
RIGHT MOMENT. FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT
DOING STAND-UP. AND NOW IT’S LIKE, OK, THIS IS PERFECT.”
–EDDIE MURPHYAsking people to follow me and all that shit. Who’s
trolling who. Who tweeted. People posting selfies
and all that. We were here before all this shit hap-
pened. We are going to die out, then it’s just going
to be like it was the normal thing. But even though I
don’t use social media, I’m up on the comedians. I got
Netflix and all that shit. I just don’t tweet.
NG: When you look at stand-up today, do you feel
that as an art form it’s evolved to another place?
EM: The art form tells more of a story than it ever
has. You’ve got a genius like Dave Chappelle. You’ve
got so many types of comedians. When I started doing
comedy, comics were opening acts. That was the best
you could hope for. Now you’ve got comics who have
never had TV shows, never been in a movie, making
$25 million a year. And starring at the Garden three
nights. Being a stand-up comic used to be this fringe
thing, and now it’s like, you know, singing, dancing
and all the other shit.
NG: And you had a lot to do with that?
EM: I’m the first one. I’m the first of the rock star
comics, doing arena tours, with leather suits. Raw
is still the biggest stand-up concert ever, in over 30
years. Still.
NG: If I’m not mistaken, you used to have a big
picture of Elvis Presley at your house, Bubble Hill,
in New Jersey. How did Elvis influence you? Your
clothes in Raw and Delirious. Was he a role model?
EM: Yeah, I was a real big Elvis Presley fan. My big
four idols were Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Richard
Pryor and Elvis. When I started doing stand-up, yeah.
Not just my clothes. My house in Jersey had colors
like Elvis’s house and all that shit. When I first blew
up, I was still on Elvis shit.
NG: Bubble Hill was kind of like Graceland?
EM: Yeah, that was Graceland. I was a big Elvis
fan. Then when I got grown, I still had the Elvis fasci-
nation, but it was totally different. Elvis was a tragic
story. The fascination became like, wow, on the sur-
face everything is perfect, he’s got it all together. But
it was the exact opposite. Complete lack of control.
Totally self-destructive. He’s going to wind up dead
at 42. That became the fascination, because I had got-
ten famous. He became the poster boy for what you’re
not supposed to do.
NG: You avoided the downfall of drugs that took
down so many people.
EM: I’m the exact opposite. Almost everybody
who falls into that trap, they’re self-destructive.
Because everybody knows how it winds up. You know
what’s coming. It’s usually the ones who are most
credible, most talented, most beautiful, the best kids
have this core damage that nobody knows about. And
they destroy themselves. I’ve never been that way.NG: Do you view yourself as a pioneer? When you
came out, Sidney Poitier had been a movie star and
then, you know, Richard Pryor. You were able to do
TV, movies, concerts, you did music. It’s a rare career.
Do you feel like you opened some doors?
EM: I can see how after I showed up, shit changed
in certain ways, with stand-up comedy and with mov-
ies. You know, 48 Hrs., Trading Places. Those movies
changed the perception of black folks in movies.
Before that, we were either sidekick stars or in tiny
movies. There wasn’t no black leads making a hun-
dred-million-dollar movie. It opened up all of that.
Not just comedians, it opened up for black actors
period. It wasn’t something I set out to do.
NG: With the stand-up, are you looking to play the
Garden again? Arenas that big?
EM: I’m looking to play the world. That’s another
thing about stand-up, it’s global now. I watch all
these comics on Netflix from all around the world.
This shit didn’t exist 30 years ago. It’s bigger than
it’s ever been. The only thing that grew bigger over
the last 30 years is hip-hop. That’s the king of the
hill. Nobody loves black people more than hip-hop.
Hip-hop has turned into billionaires, clothing lines,
alcohol, TV stations. Hip-hop is the fattest shit ever.
The height of comedy, when I started, was getting on
The Tonight Show. And you could get sitcoms. That
was the ceiling. Now you’ve got people you’ve never
even heard of making millions. You can be a niche
comic, work one little section of the audience and
make millions of dollars. It’s a trip.
NG: So we should expect an Eddie Murphy global
tour next year?
EM: Yeah, stand-up is global. My shit is global.
Because of these movies I’ve made over the last 40
years, my shit is all around the world.
NG: It’s amazing how big you became. It was
unprecedented.
EM: Yeah, man, it’s a trip, looking back on it. When
you’re in it though, when you’re young, you just kind
of take it with a grain of salt. Now that I look back on
it, I’m like, wow, that was just some other shit that
jumped off.
NG: I can’t wait to see you do stand-up again.
EM: Everybody’s got this expectation. I don’t
even know what’s going to come out. I know I’m still
the same dude. I’m still the same person. I’m older,
and I’ve changed the way people change when you
get older. But whatever mechanism made me funny,
how I come up with jokes—I’ll be at the house and
funny shit still comes out of my mouth. I’m curious
to see what happens when I put it all together and
get onstage. I hope to live up to everybody’s expecta-
tions. Whatever it is, it’s going to be me.