Eddie Murphy recalls how Sidney Poitier advised him not to star in 'Malcolm X'
"Actor and comedian Eddie Murphy opened up about some advice Sidney Poitier once gave him that left him surprised.
In Apple TV+'s new documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, he said the Oscar winner advised him not to join the cast of 1992's Malcom X.
The film was first directed by Norman Jewison, the director of Poitier's In the Heat of the Night, who cast Denzel Washington in the starring role before Spike Lee took over as director.
"They were talking about doing Malcolm X," Murphy recalled. "Norman Jewison was putting it together. They were gonna use Th e Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. And they approached me about playing Alex Haley. 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 [Washington], and you are not Morgan [Freeman]. You are a breath of fresh air, and don't [mess] with that!'."
Murphy admitted he "didn't know" if Poitier's advice "was an insult or a compliment", but was just shocked to be compared to Washington and Freeman. "I was like, 'What?'" he added.
In the documentary, Murphy also spoke about being different from the leading black men on the big screen.
"I was in uncharted waters. For Sidney and all those guys, when I showed up, it was something kinda new," Murphy said, adding, "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."
While Lee's Malcom X didn't include Haley as a character, the film ended up being a huge critical success, earning two Oscar nominations: best actor for Washington and best costume design for Ruth E. Carter, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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