Eddie Murphy sat down with Al Roker on Tuesday to promote the newest Axel Foley adventure, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.
During the interview, the comedian-turned-actor quipped about making the new Netflix movie. Murphy stated that he “felt like an old man.” Murphy continued, illustrating the differences between the newest installment of the series and the original from 1984.
“We were shooting something and the director said, ‘I want you to come out of this place and run down those steps,’” says Murphy. “After we shot and he’s like, ‘Can you come down with more urgency? Faster?’ And I was like, ‘No!'”
“I was like, ‘I’m not doing anything action. Don’t call me unless you offer me the same kind of s— you would offer Morgan Freeman,’ ” he joked.
Eddie Murphy Makes Appearance on Jimmy Fallon
Murphy also popped into the Tonight Show on Monday to share some words with Jimmy Fallon on the newest movie. The late-night host mentioned that when the original debuted, it was number one at the box office for 14 weeks. Murphy spoke about how at the time no one believed the movie could amass such popularity, including some people who created it.
Murphy describes one instance where a script supervisor on the film wanted to take an alias to avoid their name being attached to the production.
“The movie was kind of doing this new thing, so nobody knew till it came out,” he said. That’s because, before Beverly Hills Cop, there really was no such thing as an action-comedy.
“It was either action or a comedy, you know? They didn’t mix the two,” Murphy told Fallon. “Then Beverly Hills Cop is kind of the first action movie with cops and all that stuff where the action is serious and the bad guys are serious, but then really funny stuff happens. So it was like the beginning of this genre.”