Eddie Murphy reveals most bizarre advice he’s received

Eddie Murphy opened up about a bizarre piece of advice he received from Sidney Poitier on the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood.

"They were talking about doing Malcolm X," Murphy explained, "Norman Jewison was putting it together. They were gonna use The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. And they approached me about playing Alex Haley."

While considering the offer, he ran into Poitier, "Around that same time, I bumped into Sidney Poitier at something, and I asked him, 'Yeah, I'm thinking about playing Alex Haley!' And Sidney Poitier said, 'You are not Denzel, and you are not Morgan. You are a breath of fresh air, and don't f*** with that!'"

He had been referring to Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, who had also been rising to fame around the same time.

"I didn't know if it was an insult or a compliment," Murphy remarked, "I was like, 'What?'"

The film ended up casting Washington for the titular role, before the project was taken over by Spike Lee.

Analyzing the advice he received, the actor said, "I was in uncharted waters. For Sidney and all those guys, when I showed up, it was something kinda new. They didn't have a reference for me, they couldn't give me advice, 'cause I was 20, 21 years old, and my audience was the mainstream — all of everywhere. My movies [were] all around the world, and they had never had that with a young Black person. So nobody could give me advice, really. Everything broke really big and really fast.”

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