The unlikely movie Marlon Brando quoted back to Eddie Murphy: “He told me I became a star”
Even though he burst onto the scene with an intoxicating mix of self-assurance, confidence, and borderline arrogance that made him an instant sensation, Eddie Murphy was still left starstruck when he got an invitation out of the blue to have dinner with Marlon Brando.
For someone who grew up appreciating the best actors of that particular generation, it was a pinch-me moment for the comic and aspiring movie star. There aren’t many performers of that era – and the ones beyond – who didn’t deify the legendary method man, but it turned out Brando was a fan of his, too.
There are meteoric rises, and then there was Murphy’s ascension in the early 1980s, which was something else entirely. He shot to fame during his four-year stint on Saturday Night Live, and before he was even wet behind the ears as a big-screen talent, he was already an A-list megastar.
He received Golden Globe nominations for three of his first four movies, with odd couple crime caper 48 Hrs, comedy classic Trading Places, and buddy cop actioner Beverly Hills Cop runaway successes at the box office. He was a made man, but even someone to have been launched towards global fame at such a rapid rate was wracked with nerves when Brando’s agent called him up, extending an invitation.
This came shortly after Walter Hill’s 48 Hrs had hit cinemas in December 1982, with Murphy belying his status as a first-time film actor with a motormouthed turn of the highest quality. Playing the energetic foil to Nick Nolte’s straight man, his Reggie Hammond was a fountain of charisma and one-liners, with Brando immediately recognising that he was watching somebody special.
The two-time Academy Award-winning icon may have been in the midst of his eccentric phase at that period, but he knew talent when he saw it. It wouldn’t be the last time he did it, but the first time Murphy met Brando, The Godfather and On the Waterfront star quoted his dialogue in what approximated the highest of endorsements.
“I went to Brando’s house because he wanted to meet me. Had dinner with Brando. It was a trip,” Murphy admitted to Seth Meyers. “And he did a scene from 48 Hrs! He told me I became a star. He said, ‘You became a star when you said, ‘I’m your worst fucking nightmare. I’m a [N-word] with a badge, and that means I’ve got permission to kick your fucking ass.'”
Needless to say, Murphy was blown away by not only sitting opposite one of his heroes but hearing them relay his own words back at him. It was a seal of approval coming from one of the greatest to ever do it, and it became something of a Brando trademark for him to introduce himself to his peers that way.
The first time Samuel L. Jackson ever met Brando was when the veteran quoted Pulp Fiction‘s biblical monologue, which was certainly different from the standard hello but not unexpected from such an unpredictable presence.
Murphy may have pursued comedy at the expense of drama. Still, he never forgot the eye-opening moment when somebody he’d idolised from a young age who’d revolutionised the face of acting told him that not only was he a certified star but recited the exact line of dialogue that made him one.
