EDDIE MURPHY REVEALS WHY HE 'FORCED' HIMSELF TO LOSE HIS ICONIC LAUGH AFTER “BEVERLY HILLS COP”
"I forced myself to stop laughing, which is really an unnatural thing," the actor and comedian said.
Has Eddie Murphy really not been laughing in movies for the past 40 years?
For the fourth installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Murphy's titular detective is missing his trademark guffaw, something Murphy worked to lose. The legendary actor and comedian revealed in a new interview with CBR that he "forced himself" to stop doing his iconic laugh after it became too iconic following the enormous success of the original 1984 film.
"In the '80s, I was like, 'I don't want to be known for a laugh,'" Murphy said, explaining that comedians always resorted to the laugh when doing impressions of him. "That's all they did was that laugh… It was like, 'Hey, you know what, I'm going to stop laughing.' I forced myself to stop laughing, which is really an unnatural thing. You laugh, and it's like, 'I have to stop laughing like that.' And now I don't laugh like that anymore."
While he may have killed his own laughter, it had already made such an indelible impression — pun intended — that the impressions of him still continued.
"The impressions, and just… we're making too much of it. Even still!" Murphy added. "If you say do an impression, they'll do that laugh. They'll talk like me, and they'll talk like the Donkey [character from Shrek]. If you say, do Eddie Murphy, They talk, 'Hey, how you doing! [Exaggerated laugh] And it's like, that's not me."
While Murphy has made a living and a formidable legacy making other people laugh, this isn't the first time he's been on the other side of a joke. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Murphy recalled a crack David Spade made on Saturday Night Live, a show he was credited with saving in the early '80s, following the box office failure of his 1995 movie Vampire in Brooklyn.
Related: Eddie Murphy gets his Foley groove back in the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F trailer
In his "Hollywood Minute" sketch, Spade showed a picture of Murphy before quipping, "Look, children, it's a falling star. Make a wish."
"It was like, 'Hey, hello. This is Saturday Night Live,'" Murphy told the Times. "I'm the biggest thing that ever came off that show. The show would've been off the air if I didn't go back on the show, and now you have somebody from the cast making a crack about my career?"
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But it seems Murphy is having… the last laugh. In the middle of a career resurgence, one of many in his 40-plus years of fame, Murphy has returned to the character that made him a superstar, proving that he's much more than just an trademark titter.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
2024-07-01T21:53:57Z dg43tfdfdgfd