![]() ![]() ![]() "Anytime you see me in a leather suit with a leather glove with a ring on the outside of the glove, at that period I'm not grounded." "I've had my periods when I wasn't grounded," says Murphy. (There were a couple of guys lurking during this interview.) His 1987 stand-up film, "Eddie Murphy Raw," is chock-full o' raunch, and there are stories about his infamous entourage. An interview with Barbara Walters comes to mind, in which he made her sit on the floor of his furniture-less living room, refusing to be funny no matter how much she prodded. Murphy hasn't always been the model of decorum. Those years doing stand-up and impressions such as Buckwheat and Gumby for "Saturday Night Live" groomed him for this workout, he says. Plus he's created a whole casting-couch worth of other characters, from a Richard Simmons look-alike to Klump's entire dysfunctional family, who gather round the dinner table for some hilarious scenes over fried chicken with all the fixin's. Murphy naturally plays the other half of "The Nutty Professor's" Jekyll-Hyde equation, the smooth-talking Buddy Love, a guy so pumped through with male hormones he can hardly see straight. So Sherman's constantly taking this stuff and it just rolls off his shoulders, and he's still cheerful." ![]() "If you're an obese person, 400 pounds - people don't even know they're being mean," he says. You can see the self-esteem drain out of the man like air from a balloon. They go to a comedy club, where the comic who's more Eddie-like than Eddie seizes on the professor's plumpness for most of his routine. Murphy was especially struck by one scene in the movie, when Klump goes out on a first date with a beautiful colleague, played by Jada Pinkett ("Menace II Society," "Jason's Lyric"). I don't want to be that Axel Foley persona in every movie that I do." ![]() I'm as vulnerable as the next person, so it was fun to be able to play someone like that. "I usually play like fast-talking, brash characters, you know. "That was fun for me, because I've never played a person who was on the receiving end of abuse," he says. The new Eddie shares instead his newfound empathy for what the obese go through. The old Eddie at this point would have fired off a good five minutes worth of fat jokes. The actor spent four hours a day to become Sherman, having rubber blubber attached to his face, and putting on his 50-pound fat suit. Everybody wants to look a certain way and have a certain body." "I'm sure it came out of watching television and realizing so much of what comes out of the TV is about weight loss, and getting in shape, and fat-free and exercise machines," says Murphy. He pitched a twist on the original: Make Sherman Klump drastically overweight, instead of a chemistry geek as Lewis played him. The comedian jumped on the project the day after producer Brian Grazer acquired the rights in 1993. His voice was soft, almost to the point of a whisper. He was dressed in black from head to toe, with a tiny gold earring in one ear eclipsed by his chunky gold rings and watch. In town filming "Metro," Murphy took some time out to talk about his current movie, "The Nutty Professor," a remake of the 1963 Jerry Lewis chestnut opening today. He got it in San Francisco on his wedding anniversary. He lifts his sleeve to reveal the word - it's, it's FAMILY.Ī tribute to Nicole and their three young children. The rebel comedian lives! It's a rock, surrounded by water, with a word etched across the top. Next he and his wife, Nicole, pop up on the cover of sedate Parade magazine, with the headline, "We're just a boring couple."ĭid some kind of cosmic shift occur that the rest of us missed?Īnd then, a group of savvy journalists spot it, the new tattoo on his arm. Last month, he publicly apologized for past rude remarks about gays and AIDS. There is further evidence of this attitude adjustment. Could Eddie Murphy be growing up? The baddest brat of the "Saturday Night Live" pack, the flippant Axel Foley of the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies was downright serene during a recent interview in San Francisco. ![]()
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