*Eddie Murphy credits Barack Obama for luring him back in to the world of stand-up comedy.
Murphy recalled the time he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015, and Obama asked him two questions that ignited his return to movies and stand-up comedy.
Obama’s two questions were: “What kind of hair rinse I was using? and ‘When are you doing comedy again? I was like, ‘That’s your question?’ When you go into the Oval Office, and the president asks when are you doing stand-up, it’s time to do some jokes,” Murphy said, per Celebrity Insider.
We previously reported… Murphy’s return to the big screen is coming via Netflix in a biopic about the 1970s blaxploitation icon and “Godfather of rap,” Rudy Ray Moore, and his rise in the entertainment industry.
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“Dolemite Is My Name” follows Moore as a down-on-his-luck record store manager who self-produced and distributed a string of raunchy party comedy albums and eventually created the independently produced hit film “Dolemite” in 1975.
The Craig Brewer-directed project will stream on Netflix starting October 25. Murphy is also set to go on a stand-up comedy tour next year and star in the anticipated sequel to “Coming to America.”
On December 21, he’ll host “Saturday Night Live” and it will be his first time doing so in 35 years.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE and Entertainment Weekly, the comic legend explained how playing Dolemite inspired his return to stand-up.
“I was on the couch for maybe five six years and now it’s time to get off the couch,” he said. “I was on the couch because I was rested, I mean I was tired,” Murphy continued. “I’d been making movies and doing this stuff for so long I just needed time to be on the couch. Now, I’m off and [Dolemite] kind of lit a spark because it turned out so well and it got the creative juices flowing.”
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