Eddie Murphy wants to go back to stand-up when the pandemic is over
(CNN) — After three decades and multiple blockbuster movies, Eddie Murphy is planning a return to the medium that helped launch his acting career.
The “Beverly Hills Cop” star has revealed that he wants to do new stand-up comedy performances once the pandemic ends.
Appearing on SiriusXM’s podcast “Comedy Gold Minds with Kevin Hart” on Thursday, the actor said had it not been for COVID-19 restrictions, he would have already made a comeback.
“My plan was to do ‘Dolemite,’ ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘Coming 2 America,’ and then do stand up. And then the pandemic hit, and it shut the whole sh*t down,” the “Saturday Night Live” alum explained.
“The whole time last year I would have been out working on my act, trying to get my sh*t right, and then the whole thing shut down.”
He added that “when the pandemic is over and it’s safe for everybody to go out and do it, then the plan is to do it.”
Murphy, who turns 60 next month, started making a name for himself on the comedy circuit in the early 1980s with his Richard Pryor-inspired stand-up and often polarizing shows.
His 1987 film “Raw” — which was filmed in New York City’s Madison Square Garden — received a wide release and remains the top-grossing stand-up comedy movie of all time, earning more than $50 million.
Murphy can next be seen in “Coming 2 America,” the hotly anticipated sequel to the 1988 comedy classic, “Coming to America.”
The second installment, which premieres globally on Amazon Prime Video Friday will follow newly crowned King Akeem (Eddie Murphy) as he returns to Queens, New York with his trusted confidante Semmi (Arsenio Hall) in search of his previously unknown son and heir to the throne.
An earlier version of this story misstated the amount that Eddie Murphy’s film “Raw” earned. The correct figure is $50 million.
The-CNN-Wire
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