Actor/comedian Eddie Murphy says that he stopped acting after getting the Worst Actor Razzie award. The iconic star ruled the 1980s as one of the world’s most recognizable and hilarious comedians, but as the years ed, Murphy’s profile began to shift from foul-mouthed sensation to play-it-safe family man.
In addition to taking on roles that didn’t exactly push the boundaries of the sort of comedy he was known for, Murphy seemed set on the idea of playing multiple roles. This could be the result of having found so much success with the concept during Murphy’s eagerness to play more than one character, and eventually, the practice lost its charm. However, there were other issues with the work Murphy was doing in his later career. It’s difficult to pin down exactly what the problem was, but much of it had to do with the very basic fact that many of the films he was making simply weren’t good.
Eventually, Eddie Murphy’s career entered a low-point, the likes of which didn’t go unnoticed by critics or the annual celebration of dishonor known as The Razzies. In fact, as Murphy told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, Murphy its that the embarrassment of receiving the Razzie’s Worst Actor of the Decade prize in 2010 as well as other Razzie awards over the years had left him feeling like it was time to take a break from acting:
“I was making shitty movies. I was like, ‘This shit ain’t fun. They’re giving me Razzies…Motherf****ers gave me the ‘worst actor ever’ Razzie. [So I thought], ‘Maybe it’s time to take a break. I was only gonna take a break for a year, then all of a sudden six years go by, and I’m sitting on the couch, and I could sit on the couch and not get off it, but I don’t want to the last bunch of shit they see me do [to be] bullsh*t. The plan was to go do ‘Dolemite,’ ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘Coming 2 America,’ and then do stand-up and see how I felt afterwards. At least then they’ll know I’m [still] funny.”
Though Murphy never actually received the Worst Actor Ever prize from the long-running celebration of Coming 2 America.
At present, it doesn’t quite seem like Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America sequel is a major critical hit, but it is good to see him working again. Ultimately, what Murphy’s fans really want to see, however, is a return to stand up. His stand-up performances rank as some of the greatest of all time and for anyone who loves comedy, it’s hard to beat what Murphy has to offer.
Source: WTF with Marc Maron (via IndieWire)
