Eddie Murphy names the greatest performance of his career: “For me, there’s no comparison”
Unlike many of his comedic contemporaries, Eddie Murphy never made an overt or transparent attempt to segue into more serious dramatic roles, although he was open to toning down his signature shtick and playing it straight on occasion.
It’s not that he was against getting serious; it just never felt like the best use of his talents. Whereas stand-up icons like Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, or even Adam Sandler are equally effective at introspection as they are hamming it up, all of Murphy’s best dramatic performances feature at least some degree of levity.
His Academy Award-nominated turn in Dreamgirls and his tour-de-force Golden Globe-nominated work in Dolemite Is My Name are the perfect examples: Murphy tones it down, dials it back, and treats the material with the utmost respect, but he’s never truly required to intentionally stifle his natural charisma or ability to make audiences laugh. To prove it’s his best approach, look no further than the straight-faced and soggy Mr Church.
Murphy made the Golden Globes shortlist for his debut feature 48 Hrs, Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop, underlining that he could give award-worthy performances without deviating from his motor-mouthed persona. Unfortunately, critics and audiences gradually fell out of love with his filmography, not that they didn’t have reason to, which necessitated a reinvention of sorts.
Well, it wasn’t quite a reinvention because Murphy had already played multiple characters before in Coming to America and Vampire in Brooklyn. However, he wanted to stick it to everyone who claimed his career was circling the drain with The Nutty Professor, taking on seven roles out of a combination of ambition and spite.
It certainly worked, with the comedy cleaning up at the box office, winning an Oscar for ‘Best Makeup’, and landing Murphy on the Golden Globes shortlist for the first time in over a decade. Not only that, but the star remains adamant that it’s the best performance he’s ever given.
“For me, there’s no comparison,” he told The New York Times. “That stuff is real. Those makeups that Rick Baker did that turn you into another person, and there’s no sign of me: I could walk in a room, and a person wouldn’t know it was me. Let’s put it this way: I like Bowfinger, but I could think of 20 other actors that could have played that role. I can’t think of another person that could do Nutty Professor.”
Ryan Reynolds called it “one of the greatest injustices” in Oscars history that Murphy didn’t get nominated for The Nutty Professor, and he was being serious. It’s not the type of work the Academy usually rewards, but it evidently had an impact on a generation of comedically inclined performers, never mind the fact the guy who played all of the Klumps doesn’t think he’s ever been better.
