Eddie Murphy says Marlon Brando once told him that ‘acting is bulls–t,’ couldn’t ‘stand’ Clint Eastwood
A dinner invite from Marlon Brando was simply an offer Eddie Murphy could not refuse.
Recalling a memorable conversation he had with the late 2-time Oscar winner, Murphy, 63, recalled a couple of exchanges he had with Brando, who was known to never mince words.
In an interview with the New York Times’ podcast “The Interview,” the “Trading Places” actor detailed the time he was invited to the late actor’s home following his first-ever film role, in 1982’s “48 Hrs.”
“This is how long ago it was: He was going, ‘I can’t stand that kid with the gun.’ I was like, ‘What kid with the gun?’ He said, ‘He’s on the poster!’ ” Murphy called.
“I was like, ‘Clint Eastwood?’ ‘Yeah, that guy!’ He was calling Clint Eastwood ‘that kid,’” he added.
Despite calling Eastwood a “kid,” Brando was just six years older than the “Million Dollar Baby” star.
Elsewhere, Murphy recalled the very first time he hung out with Brando, who died at age 80 in 2004.
Brando picked up Murphy at a rooftop restaurant at the L’Ermitage luxury hotel in Los Angeles, before inviting him over to his home.
“He came and picked me up at the hotel. But there was a time mix-up, and I came down like a half-hour late — he was waiting for me in the car,” Murphy recalled.
“We went to his house on Mulholland,” he shared, adding that he “was just going on and on” about Brando’s 1972 film “The Godfather.”
Brando, who played Don Vito Corleone in the hit film, brushed off the praise.
“He was like, ‘Eh, The Godfather.’ Not just ‘The Godfather’ — acting,” Murphy recalled. “He was like, ‘Acting is bulls–t, and everybody can act.’”
Murphy said he looks back on those memories fondly to this day.
“I was having these famous people that I grew up watching on television wanting to have a meal with me,” he said.
“Now I look back and go, ‘Wow, that’s crazy. The greatest actor of all time wants to have dinner with you!’ But back then I just thought, ‘Well, that’s the way it is. You make a movie, and Marlon Brando calls.’”