KING OF COOL

Eddie Murphy is coming out with a new Beverly Hills Cop movie. Tanzim Pardiwalla chats to him via video on making a sequel to his first hit franchise and about his legacy

- Tanzim Pardiwalla

Oh, it's always great to have them tell you that you look great and that you still look like you. That's a nice feeling,” says Eddie Murphy on a Pacific Time video call. The star, at 63, has aged like fine wine. Seeing him on my laptop screen, it is hard to believe that he launched his career at the age of 19 with Saturday Night Live back in 1980. “All I can say is thank you. I don’t know, I can't tell you what to do. I don’t have any skincare regimen. That’s just genetics, and I’m lucky. And I don’t drink alcohol. I never drank alcohol. That’s the other thing (Laughs),” he adds, taking a moment to let the compliment sink in.

His 1982 film 48 Hrs. earned him a Golden Globes nomination at 20. By the time he was 21, he found himself as the first Black lead of a major action-comedy franchise - Beverly Hills Cop. With slick action sequences and comedy that still lands after all these years, the franchise effectively made him a movie star. 40 years later, Axel Foley is back in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Eddie Murphy reprises his role, joining some old friends including John Ashton’s Chief John Taggart and Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood. If you ask Murphy, going back was as easy as slipping on the varsity jacket. “It was kind of natural. It all happened organically once we had a good script because the