Exclusive: Eddie Murphy on Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, representation & more

Oh, it’s always great to have them tell you that you look great and that you still look like you. That’s a nice feeling,” says Eddie Murphy on a Pacific Time video call. The star, at 63, has aged like fine wine. Seeing him on my laptop screen, it is hard to believe that he launched his career at the age of 19 with Saturday Night Live back in 1980. “All I can say is thank you. I don’t know, I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t have any skincare regimen. That’s just genetics, and I’m lucky. And I don’t drink alcohol. I never drank alcohol. That’s the other thing (Laughs),” he adds, taking a moment to let the compliment sink in.

His 1982 film 48 Hrs. earned him a Golden Globes nomination at 20. By the time he was 21, he found himself as the first Black lead of a major action-comedy franchise – Beverly Hills Cop. With slick action sequences and comedy that still lands after all these years, the franchise effectively made him a movie star. 40 years later, Axel Foley is back in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Eddie Murphy reprises his role, joining some old friends including John Ashton’s Chief John Taggart and Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood. If you ask Murphy, going back was as easy as slipping on the varsity jacket. “It was kind of natural. It all happened organically once we had a good script because the Beverly Hills Cop movies and stories are playing all the time. They play on cable and satellite so they’re always around. So it was really easy to go back and do it because it’s always there. It wasn’t like I had to go and find the character again,” he muses, reflecting on the iconic franchise’s place in movie history. That being said, Eddie recalls feeling his age on set. Fewer stunts, more reaction shots amidst action scenes. “I’m a totally different person. When I did the first Beverly Hills Cop, I was 21 years old. I didn’t have any kids. Now I’m a grandpa in my 60s (laughs). I have 10 kids now.” One of them (Bria Murphy) played a minor character in the film, a cop who arrests Axel. He goes on, “I feel like the world has changed so much since last year or two to three years ago. So you can imagine the changes that the world has gone through since it was a whole different planet back when I started this movie.”

“I can’t even pick out how much I’ve grown. I’ve changed in every single way a human being can change. Except, the artist at the centre of the human being doesn’t change. My spirit as an artist is the same. It will always be the same,” he added thoughtfully. Eddie has grown with Axel. Digging deeper into the character’s psyche, the star breaks down his arc. “Axel thought that he loved the job so he kept going back for more. He’s still doing what he’s doing. And he’s past that; all of his buddies and his contemporaries are retired and he’s still doing what he’s doing because that’s all he has. That’s what’s great about what’s going on in the subtext of the movie – Axel has a shitty relationship with his daughter. They’re estranged. And then he was married and till he isn’t. Now there’s his daughter whom he hasn’t dealt with in years and years. And all he really has is his job.”

The emotional context of the film is in the driver’s seat throughout the runtime. Axel must confront what he’s running away from, his broken familial bond with his daughter. “When he comes out to Beverly Hills, California, it’s because his daughter’s in danger. In the background of the movie, they’re trying to fix this problem they have. That’s the stuff that sticks the whole movie together. Axel’s trying to work out the real reason why he’s here driving a truck through a wall, stealing helicopters and all that. It is because he’s got a terrible relationship with his daughter that he’s trying to work through.”

Eddie’s face lights up with a knowing smile as I tell him that my earliest memory of watching a Hollywood film led by a person of colour was watching The Nutty Professor as an 8-year-old on the couch with my family. Featuring Eddie Murphy in a fat suit, the 1996 film wasn’t perfect but it had all the makings of a feel-good watch with just the right amount of poignancy. When asked about what’s different today, Eddie recalls, “Well, so much has changed, it’s like you said, I was the first person of colour leading a franchise. Beverly Hills Cop was the first movie to star a Black person which was released all around the world. And I had other movies that people watched all around the world like Coming To America.” He goes on, “I used to be the only Black person. And now you have people of colour who have movies all around the world. The business has changed. It’s still not a level playing field. But you have so much diversity. The world has changed so much.”

“The biggest movie star in the world right now is an Indian, it’s a Bollywood star – Shah Rukh Khan. More people around the world go to see Bollywood stars’ movies. So the whole world has evolved. It’s a whole different scene out there than how it used to be,” he concludes. Well, that’s world cinema as told by Eddie Murphy – some film franchises are here to stay, the key to making good movies is to get representation right and… SRK is King. Eddie does his signature bass-heavy laugh before logging off, “Thank you for having me. Bye now.”