Eddie Murphy is an Academy Award-nominated actor — but, to him, that doesn’t mean that you only have to make prestige pictures. Firmly established as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, Murphy — who just premiered “The Pickup” on Amazon Prime — has always made exactly the kind of movie he wants to make in the moment. Hence why he followed up 2006’s “Dreamgirls” — which netted not just an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, but five other nominations and two wins — with the widely panned “Norbit” in 2007.
“I love ‘Norbit,’” Murphy said on Complex’s interview series “360 With Speedy Morman” (via The Wrap). “There were articles like, ‘How can he get an Oscar, he did this?’ They’re two different movies. I wrote ‘Norbit’ with my brother, Charlie [Murphy], and we think ‘Norbit’ is funny. Here’s the thing with ‘Norbit’: It came out, it got voted for Razzies for Worst Actor of the Decade, Worst Actor, and Worst Actress. They gave me a Razzie for Worst Actress, Worst Actor, and Worst Actor of the Decade. And I was like, ‘Come on now, shit ain’t that bad.’”
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In the movie, Murphy not only played the titular Norbit, he also donned drag to portray the character’s wife, Rasputia. Murphy has rarely given much heed to what critics think, though he isn’t afraid to admit when he feels he’s made a genuine stinker — not that he harbors any regrets about the movies that passed him by. In fact, he turned down one of the ’90s biggest hit comedies (or one of the biggest ones Murphy wasn’t already in).
“They came to me, it was two scripts,” Murphy explained. “It was ‘Rush Hour,’ it’s going to be action-comedy and you’re going to be with Jackie Chan, and it’s action, it’s summertime, running, all this physical stuff. This other [offer] was, ‘You in a robe in Miami’ — it was a no-brainer. We went to Miami and made a horrendous film, but it was easy. I have to stop saying horrendous. The movie was soft, it wasn’t a great picture.”
1998’s “Holy Man” was indeed one of the few Murphy movies to lose money, in addition to savage critical reviews. One other major project Murphy passed on was “Malcolm X.” Interestingly, it was a historic Oscar-winner who told Murphy to sit that film out.
“They were talking about doing ‘Malcolm X,’” Murphy said in the Apple TV+ documentary “Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood.” “Norman Jewison was putting it together. They were going to use ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ by Alex Haley, and they approached me about playing Alex Haley. Around that same time, I bumped into Sidney Poitier at something, and I asked him, ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about playing Alex Haley!’ And Sidney Poitier said, ‘You are not Denzel [Washington], and you are not Morgan [Freeman]. You are a breath of fresh air, and don’t fuck with that!’ […] I didn’t know if it was an insult or a compliment. I was like, ‘What?’”
Alex Haley ended up not being a character in 1992’s “Malcolm X,” which ended up directed instead by Spike Lee and starring Washington, who earned an Oscar nomination for his work.
Watch Murphy’s full “360 With Speedy Morman” interview below.
