Eddie Murphy on 'The Pickup,' kickstarting the action-comedy genre and his retirement plan

Article content

Before the pandemic came along and upended everything, Eddie Murphy had retirement on his mind.

After completing work on his 2019 dramedy Dolemite Is My Name (in which he played pioneering Black filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore), the Oscar-nominated actor was going to return to Studio 8H to host Saturday Night Live for the first time since leaving the late-night sketch comedy show in 1984. Then he was going to star in a long-awaited sequel to his 1988 comedy classic Coming to America. After that he was going to hit the road for his first standup tour in almost four decades.

Once he completed all those tasks, the 64-year-old father of 10 was headed to one place: the couch.

The comedy legend made it partway through that list. The standup tour never happened. He also didn’t make it to the chesterfield.

But his return as King Akeem Joffer in 2021’s Coming 2 America reminded him he still knew how to make audiences laugh.

Shortly after the film became a streaming hit for Prime Video, Murphy found himself being presented with a series of movie roles he couldn’t say no to, including last year’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which saw him returning to his Beverly Hills Cop franchise for the first time in 30 years.

Murphy swore to himself that would be his last action role. But then he was offered The Pickup, a new heist pic that casts him and fellow SNL alum Pete Davidson as two armoured truck drivers who find themselves having to protect their load from a group of ruthless criminals led by Keke Palmer.

“I didn’t really want to do more action movies,” Murphy tells Postmedia in a video interview from Los Angeles. “After Beverly Hills Cop 4, I said, ‘I’m not doing nothing else where I can get hurt!’ But this script (penned by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider) was good, so I thought I’d take a shot at it.”

Working with director Tim Story (Barbershop, Ride Along), Murphy tapped Davidson and Palmer to help round out the action-packed comedy coming to Prime Video Aug. 6.

These good things keep presenting themselves and keeping me out there

Eddie Murphy has no plans to slow down

Davidson, who along with Murphy is one of the youngest cast members in SNL’s 50-year history, says working with the funnyman was something he had dreamt about since he was little.

“When I was 7, I saw Shrek and I was blown away by Donkey and my mom told me that it was Eddie Murphy,” Davidson says. “So he’s responsible for anything I do, really.”

Those plans to sit himself down and retreat from the spotlight will have to wait. Murphy is hard at work voicing Donkey for a fifth Shrek movie. He’s also planning to reprise the fan-favourite character for a spinoff centred around Donkey. In the midst of all this, Murphy is set to star in a biopic based on Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton and lead a Pink Panther revamp.

“But eventually I will get to the couch,” he laughs.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Murphy was eager to reflect on how he impacted the action-comedy genre and reveal the one thing he doesn’t want to see happen in his career again.

The Pickup reminded me of some of the action films I grew up watching in the ’80s, like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. Did you see this as a throwback movie of sorts?

“No, but people have said to me, ‘This reminds me of those movies.’ And it’s because of me. I’m in those movies (laughs). It’s like when they forgot I’m funny. ‘Oh yeah, you were funny.'”

Watching The Pickup and seeing how it blends action and comedy made me really realize that you kickstarted that whole action-comedy genre.

“I know it sounds pretentious if you don’t know the history, but I kind of pioneered (the genre). The very first action-comedy movie is 48 Hrs. Before 48 Hrs. there were no movies where you had action and comedy. Serious cop movies with people getting killed and bad guys and comedy. That didn’t exist before 48 Hrs. Then after 48 Hrs. came Beverly Hills Cop. Then the genre just exploded … all the cops were saying things like, ‘Yippee ki yay, motherf—er’ and ‘Hasta la vista, baby.’ All the cops had one-liners and they started mixing action and comedy. But the root of all those pictures is 48 Hrs. Every action comedy.”

It’s funny, because the last time we spoke, you recounted to me how you invented the mic drop in the first Coming to America.

“I did! The very first mic drop, you know when I was doing the press on Coming to America 2 and I said that, people were like, ‘No you didn’t.’ But yeah, you look back … Randy Watson in Coming to America … He’s the very first person to drop the mic. His performance is so amazing that he’s dropping the mic. That’s the very first mic drop. But I feel like Chubby Checker. He’s still around and he thinks his Twist song started everything. ‘Twist and Shout is mine!’ … I feel like Chubby Checker, defending myself. ‘I started the mic drop!’ ‘I started the action comedy!’ ‘I’m Chubby Checker!'”

When we spoke last time, you told me you had a whole plan. It was all mapped out. You were going to release Dolemite Is My Name, then host SNL, star in Coming to America 2, then do a standup tour and then it was going to be the couch. But you’ve done a lot more than that. You starred in You People and Beverly Hills Cop 4 and coming up we have Shrek 5. So how are you seeing this chapter of your career?

“We’ve got Shrek 5, there’s a Donkey cartoon we’re doing with just the Donkey character. I’m getting ready to do a film about George Clinton and Funkadelic, it’s the George Clinton story and I’m also the new Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. I’m going to be in a new Pink Panther. So I had planned to do those things, and then go to the couch, but we’re having such a ball (laughs). These good things keep presenting themselves and keeping me out there.”

Is there anything left you still want to do as an actor?

“I just want to do good work. I have things that I don’t want to do any more. I don’t want to make anymore bad movies. I’ve made a lot of movies just for some money. But the movie’s s— and you have this big cheque, and years later, many years later after the money’s spent, that bad movie is still out there playing on HBO or one of the movie channels. I don’t know what it is, but it always seems like any bad movie I did is showing around these great movies. You’ll see Raging Bull and Die Hard and then it’ll be Pluto Nash. ‘Why are they showing this one?! Why are they showing this?!'”

The Pickup will be available to stream on Aug. 6 on Prime Video.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

Recommended Video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video