Entertainment Heartbeat

Eddie Murphy on the cover of the "Rolling Stone" courtesy Beth Furtwangler / Wenner Media

After years of near-silence, Eddie Murphy gives a rare extensive print interview in the new issue of Rolling Stone, and he opens up about the ups and downs of his long career, his possible return to stand-up, his Oscar hosting plans and much more.

Murphy is baffled by his reputation as a near-recluse: “I leave my house all the time,” he says. “But I’m not at all the Hollywood parties. I’m grown, and where else am I supposed to be? I’m supposed to be home . . . If I were out in the clubs every night, they’d be saying, ‘That’s a shame, look at him, 50 years old, he’s still out at these clubs.’ Recluses are nasty, with long nails, don’t wash their ass. . . . I’m too vain to be a recluse. But homebody, absolutely. I’m 50 years old, beautiful house, I’m supposed to be home, chilling.”

Other highlights from the story:

–Murphy says that his days of making family movies may be over. “I don’t have any interest in that right now. There’s really no blueprint, but I’m trying to do some edgy stuff. And I only want to do what I really want to do, otherwise I’m content to sit here and play my guitar all day. I always tell people now that I’m a semiretired gentleman of leisure, and occasionally I’ll go do some work to break the boredom up.”

–Murphy has decided not to make Beverly Hills Cop IV. “They’re not doing it. What I’m trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley’s son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit. I’d do the pilot, show up here and there. None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn’t be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong.”

–Murphy hasn’t performed stand-up since the late 1980s, but recently, he’s given some thought to trying again. “If I ever get back onstage, I’m going to have a really great show for you all. An hour and a half of stand-up and about 40 minutes of my shitty band . . . But I haven’t done it since I was 27, so why f*** with it? But that’s just weighing both sides. It comes up too much for me to not do it again. It’s like, when it hits me, I’ll do it, eventually.”

–Murphy addresses reports that he stormed out of the Oscars after losing the best supporting actor award. “What happened was after I lost, I’m just chilling, and I was sitting next to Beyoncé’s pops, and he leans over and grabs me and is like, [solemn voice] ‘There will be other times.’ And then you feel Spielberg on your shoulder going, ‘It’s all right, man.’ Then Clint Eastwood walks by: ‘Hey, guy . . . ’ So I was like, ‘It’s not going to be this night!’ [Mimes getting up] I didn’t have sour grapes at all. That’s another reason I wanted to host the show – to show them that I’m down with it.”

The full interview is in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone on newsstands Friday. More at www.rollingstone.com.