“They’re laughing at him”: Eddie Murphy names the greatest bad actor of all time
Eddie Murphy has made a valiant effort to reclaim the legacy of a misunderstood star.
It’s hard to overstate just how much of a big deal Eddie Murphy was when he first had his breakout roles, and why his subsequent decline from popularity has been so disappointing. Murphy was only a little bit older than a teenager when he became a scene-stealer on Saturday Night Live, and subsequently launched into an amazing movie career.
Thanks to 48 Hrs, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, and Coming to America, Murphy ruled the ‘80s because every film he was in seemed to be treated as a blockbuster event. However, the decline in the quality of Murphy’s work became sharper over time; by the mid-20th century, he was basically only taking roles for the paychecks.
Those who had assumed Murphy would never take on another quality role again may have been surprised when he decided to take on one of the first biopics of his career. Working with Crag Brewer, who had directed the Academy Award-winning music drama Hustle & Flow, cast him to play Rudy Ray Moore in the biopic Dolemite Is My Name.
Moore was a failed comedian and aspiring B-movie actor who had struggled to be taken seriously by both major Hollywood studios and the producers of blaxploitation films. However, it was through perseverance and sheer will that Moore assembled crews to make his own films, including the cult classic Dolemite. While many people viewed these films to be completely incompetent, Murphy said that Moore was in on the joke the whole time.
“I’ve had this conversation with comedians all the time,” Murphy said. “They’re laughing at him, saying, ‘Look how bad he is. He doesn’t realise how bad this is.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, he knows this is funny.’”
Dolemite Is My Name made the case that Moore had simply been at odds with what the (primarily white) executives in Hollywood thought audiences wanted to see, and made films that he felt could be as entertaining as possible. While logic wasn’t always a huge factor in the way that these films were constructed, they rarely failed to be entertaining.
Dolemite Is My Name also pointed out a rare fact about Moore, which is that he helped advocate for other Black artists and gave them important roles among his crew. As a result, films like Dolemite propped up an entire opportunity, even if on the surface they seemed to only look like star vehicles for Moore.
In what felt like the ultimate tribute, Murphy enacted this same practice with how he filled out the ensemble for Dolemite Is My Name; included within the cast were many prominent Black actors, including Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg, Titus Burgess, and Craig Robinson. Most notably, Dolemite Is My Name featured a breakout role for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who would win an Academy Award four years later for her performance in The Holdovers.
The acclaim for Dolemite Is My Name has sadly not kick-started a new era in Murphy’s career, as he has mostly gone back to making generic streaming comedies and will accept another paycheck to voice Donkey in Shrek 5. However, Dolemite Is My Name was at least proof that he hadn’t completely lost the comic magic that had made him a superstar over four decades prior.
