Murphy: Multiple Roles Again
Eddie Murphy is known for playing a wide variety of roles in film.
And his latest comedy, Bowfinger is no exception, reports CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.
In Bowfinger, Murphy stars as Hollywood's hottest actor Kit Ramsey and also as Kit's dimwitted nerdy brother Jiff. Both cross paths with struggling Hollywood producer Bobby Bowfinger, played by Steve Martin.
Murphy praises MartinÂ's skills: "He's just really different from other comedians. He has his own little spaceÂ….Nobody else is like Steve," he says.
"He's got a really unique way of thinking. He's a genius. A quiet genius," Murphy says.
When Murphy first entered show business, there was a lot of competitiveness, particularly at Saturday Night Live, he says. But working with Martin was quite a different experience.
"When you're around these guys, these old veterans, they're like, he's so comfortable in his skin, you know. He's just at work trying to get the best scene," Murphy says.
Murphy explains how he plays two characters in Bowfinger. (In The Nutty Professor, he portrayed an entire family.)
"If I'm at a table and I'm doing a scene with myself at a table, I'll do the lines and I'll have a tennis ball hanging where I'm going to be in the scene tomorrow in that place. And I'll be talking to a tennis ball basically," explains Murphy, laughing.
"And then tomorrow I come and sit where the tennis ball was and then they record my dialogue. And I do dialogue back to a tennis ball on the other side," he says.
"You gotta kind of remember what you, how you were moving and stuff to get the gestures all worked out," he says.
Even though Murphy is eager to share how he make a multiple-role scene, he is reluctant to give young comedians advice, he says. Rather his advice is not to take anyone's advice.
"Cause I had some rotten advice over the years from people that you know meant well," Murphy says.
"Or thought they knew the wayÂ….Cause everybody's on a whole different trip," he says.
Murphy observes that everybody's got their own life to live: "So you really can't say, Â'Hey, I did it this way and if you do it this way, it'll turn out that way.Â'"
"I've seen artists that you know tried to do something someone else did. And it just doesn't work you know. Cause you're not who that person is," Murphy says.
On the television front, Murphy's animated program The PJs received three Emmy nominations this year, including ones for best animated series and best main title music.
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