The only audition of Eddie Murphy’s career: “What actor can make that assertion?”
There was a time when Eddie Murphy was worth his weight in gold. Following a stint on the stand-up comedy circuit, the New York native fronted several major movies in the 1980s. As Axel Foley, he helmed the monstrously successful Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Then there were one-offs like 48 Hrs, Coming to America, and Trading Places. He is one of the highest-grossing actors in United States history and is widely regarded as an all-time comedy mastermind.
There comes a point in every major actor’s career where their name and face are all they need to get a job. Before that point comes, however, everyone goes through the same gruelling process of traipsing around to various auditions, getting turned down a hundred times before, sometimes, actually getting hired. Not Murphy, though. Not according to an interview he conducted with Vanity Fair.
“I’ve only had one audition my whole life, you know,” he matter-of-factly told the publication. “What actor can make that assertion?” According to the Shrek star, this audition wasn’t for a movie or a traditional TV show. It was for Saturday Night Live, the US sketch institution on which he first cut his teeth. The ‘SNL’ audition process is legendary, with various future greats getting rejected by the show ahead of their own big breaks. Not Murphy, though. He allegedly nailed it first time.
“The first audition is literally a guy sitting in a room by himself, and he just says, ‘Make me laugh,’” the star recalled. “That would be daunting to most people, but because I had been doing stand-up I had 15 to 20 minutes of an act. I was used to going up late at night at the Comic Strip. When you’re a young comic you don’t get good spots, so you’re going up in front of five or six people anyway.”
Murphy joined the cast of SNL in 1980. This was a pivotal time in the show’s history. Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL and one of its key components, had left the year before, taking a large portion of the cast and writing staff with him. This left associate producer Jean Doumanian in charge and with a hell of a mountain to climb. Despite this immense pressure, Doumanian made some incredible hires, including Joe Piscopo and Denny Dillon. Murphy was the breakout, though. He stuck around for four years before leaving to become a megastar. As for Doumanian, she was unceremoniously midway through the season. That’s what you get for being a woman on TV in the 1980s, I guess.
It might have been the thing that launched his career, but Murphy’s relationship with SNL hasn’t always run smoothly. A joke by David Spade at his expense on a 1995 episode led to the box office dynamo distancing himself from the show. Fences were eventually mended, though, and Murphy has since appeared on the 40th and 50th anniversary editions of the long-running series.
It’s hard to believe that anybody in the film industry has only ever had one audition in their life, but it’s easy to forget how young Murphy was when he broke through on SNL. Those early episodes of the show could have effectively served as auditions for his early movies, so maybe he’s telling the truth. It’s also possible that he’s just blowing his own trumpet, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
