The role Eddie Murphy will always regret turning down: “I feel like an idiot”
Whether you think the brand of comedy that Eddie Murphy is associated with is infantile or you love the silliness of the characters he often embodies, you can’t deny the actor’s impact over the years. Emerging on screen in the early 1980s, Murphy would become known for his contributions to Saturday Night Live, earning a role on the show after honing a career as a stand-up comedian.
However, he soon began appearing in comedies that were box office hits, like Trading Places, The Golden Child and Beverly Hills Cop. Murphy became a huge star known for his compelling presence. It seemed as though being funny came as natural to him as breathing – it was hard to argue with the fact that he was one of the biggest comedic presences in the United States during this time.
From the ‘90s onwards, however, Murphy started embodying the kinds of characters that some considered crass, unfunny or offensive, while others saw the satire in them and revelled in their outright stupidity. In 1996, he starred as an overweight teacher in The Nutty Professor, donning a fat suit to play the leading role. In 2007, he returned to the fat suit, this time playing an overweight and abusive woman called Rasputia Latimore in Norbit. He also played the titular character, Rasputia’s husband, alongside a host of other characters that he shapeshifted into.
Norbit was nominated for a handful of Golden Raspberry awards, proving to be one of his less impressive projects. He also failed to find acclaim with roles in films like Daddy Day Care, Meet Dave, Imagine That, The Haunted Mansion and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, with the latter earning just $7.1 million at the box office on a budget of $100m. Still, he found success with roles such as Donkey in the Shrek franchise, James in Dreamgirls, and Slide in Tower Heist.
Evidently, Murphy has found a mixed success rate with his work, his most impressive performances coming during the early days of his career, particularly with Beverly Hills Cop. However, he regrets turning down a specific movie that ended up being a huge hit. Talking to Jimmy Fallon, he revealed, “The only movie I ever turned down that became a big hit was that Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was going to be the Bob Hoskins dude. And I was like, ‘What? Animation and people? That sounds like bullshit to me’. Now every time I see it, I feel like an idiot.”
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released in 1988 during the height of Murphy’s character and could’ve been another great credit to add to his filmography. Instead, he wasn’t convinced by the whole merging of humans with animation, which is totally understandable. Many critics considered Robert Zemeckis’ blend of the two a pioneering achievement, though, and it ended up winning an Oscar for ‘Best Film Editing’.
The movie grossed more than $351m worldwide, with audiences lapping up the innovative idea of having humans and animations coexist together.
