After recently announcing he’s planning a stand-up return, Eddie Murphy revealed he’s been banking new material over the past few years.
The comedian told The New York Times in a Sept. 26 article, he started recording new joke ideas about three years ago.
“I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon,” Murphy said about the new material. “There was a time when I was at the center of everything, what I was doing, and how funny I was and how popular. I’m not at the center. Now my kids are and everything revolves around them.”
Related Story: Eddie Murphy Books ‘SNL’ Hosting Gig After 35 Years Away
Netflix will reportedly pay the comedy legend around $70 million for a undisclosed number of specials.
Murphy said he’s locked in nearly 20 minutes of good material, and plans to spend the next several months working on a 90 minute set he can take on the road.
The new jokes probably won’t be as edgy as his stand-up routines from the 1980s. The actor and comedian said he’s evolved since then, and isn’t exactly proud of some of the punchlines he delivered in Raw.
“I was a young guy processing a broken heart, you know, kind of an asshole,” he said about the 1987 standup film.
Murphy now admits some of his old jokes make him cringe.
“That’s a bit much, my goodness,” he said about his old stand-up routine, which included homophobic jokes.
Murphy’s comeback officially kicked off earlier this month, at the Toronto International Film Festival with the premiere of Dolemite Is My Name.
He stars in the Netflix biopic about comedian, movie producer and rap pioneer Rudy Ray Moore. When Hollywood shuts him out, Moore comes up with an outrageous alter-ego and strikes out on his own to make the 1975 blaxploitation film Dolemite.
The Craig Brewer-directed Netflix film got strong reviews in Toronto, with Owen Gleiberman of Variety calling it “a total motherf-kin’ blast.”
Soraya Nadia McDonald of The Undefeated described the film as “a breath of fresh air,” and Adriana Gomez-Weston of AwardsCircuit.com said Dolemite is “Eddie Murphy’s triumphant return.”
