Caffeinated Clint
As the story goes, “Tower Heist” was originally conceieved to be somewhat of a black-“Ocean’s Eleven” with Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and a couple of other African-American funnymen all ganging up to rob a Donald Trump type. It was apparently a project Murphy was really gunning to do, having wanted to unite with his fellow black funnymen for years (noting that “Harlem Nights”, which he did with the great Richard Pryor as well as Redd Foxx and Della Reese, was one of the highlights of his career). As it turned out, Murphy would ultimately be the only black comedian in “Tower Heist” (Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck and Matthew Broderick are among the cast), but he tells the print version of Rolling Stone this month that he’s not giving up on doing such a film.
Here’s a bit of that, transcribed :
“I still want to do something like that”, Murphy says, adding that he had Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Tracey Morgan and Martin Lawrence all lined up for that first incarnation of “Tower Heist”. “I have this idea called ‘Jamal and Tyrell and Omar and Brick and Michael’s Wack-Ass Weekend‘ about this group of guys who get abducted by aliens on the way to the fights. I’m writing that now.”
Sounds fun. Maybe.
More interesting, in my opinion, was a question asked about Murphy’s ‘HEH, HEH, HEH!’ – yup, why he doesn’t do his ‘signature laugh’ anymore.
Murphy says he can’t do the laugh. “I don’t laugh like that, somehow it doesn’t come out. It’s weird to change something that’s as natural as that. But it started out as a real laugh, then it turned into people laughing because they thought my laugh was funny, and then there were a couple of times where I laughed because I knew it would make people laugh. Then it got weird. People came up to me and said, ‘Do that laugh’ or if you laugh, someone turns around and goes ‘Eddie?’. I just stopped doing it.”
Yeah, ya know, if that laugh’s gone… I dunno if I want another “Beverly Hills Cop”.
Though there is hope for the Oscars…
“I should come out in my red leather suit”, host Murphy said in the article when asked about his plans for the opening number.
