Eddie Murphy has a celebrated career, but at one point, he received puzzling advice from Sidney Poitier about his career.
In the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, the SNL star recalled, “They were talking about doing Malcolm X. Norman Jewison (initally he was set to direct the project but later Spike Lee does it) was putting it together. They were gonna use The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. And they approached me about playing Alex Haley.”
Still considering the offer, Eddie said he had bumped into Sidney, who, in return, gave him advice that left him confused.
“Around that same time, I bumped into Sidney Poitier at something, and I asked him, ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about playing Alex Haley!'” he recounted.
“And Sidney Poitier said, ‘You are not Denzel, and you are not Morgan. You are a breath of fresh air, and don’t ***** with that!,'” the 63-year-old said.
“I didn’t know if it was an insult or a compliment,” Eddie wondered, adding, “I was like, ‘What?'”
But the Shrek star took a deep dive into Sidney’s remarks, speculating why The Jackal star believed he was different from Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman.
“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,” The Nutty Professor added.
“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,” Eddie concluded.
