Eddie Murphy was too funny to be in Malcolm X

In the 1980s, Eddie Murphy was one of the funniest comedians on the scene, starring in box office smashes, headlining iconic stand-up specials and pulling his fair amount of weight on Saturday Night Live. As the ‘90s rolled around, Murphy was on the cusp of his cold streak, but still at the point where major directors were after him. That includes Spike Lee, who tried to get him in 1992’s Malcolm X before an Oscar winner talked Murphy out of it.

As Eddie Murphy recalls in the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood (via EW), Malcolm X director Spike Lee approached him to play Alex Haley, who wrote the source novel The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But one legend put a stop to it, telling Murphy that he was of an entirely different ilk than some of his contemporaries. “Around that same time, I bumped into Sidney Poitier at something, and I asked him, ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about playing Alex Haley!’ And Sidney Poitier said, ‘You are not Denzel [Washington], and you are not Morgan [Freeman]. You are a breath of fresh air, and don’t f*ck with that!’” By and large, Murphy has avoided dramatic roles. Meanwhile, Poitier thought he could pull off comedy with Uptown Saturday Night…

Poitier may have had a point there as he steered Murphy from Malcolm X, as the comedian stood out in a way like no other Black performer was at the time. “I was in uncharted waters. For Sidney and all those guys, when I showed up, it was something kinda new. They didn’t have a reference for me, they couldn’t give me advice, ‘cause I was 20, 21 years old, and my audience was the mainstream — all of everywhere. My movies [were] all around the world, and they had never had that with a young Black person. So nobody could give me advice, really. Everything broke really big and really fast.”
In the end, Poitier’s words meant that no one would play Alex Haley. (He had previously been played by James Earl Jones in miniseries Roots, while Laurence Fishburne would play him in narrator form in the 2016 remake.) But the film would be incredibly well-received, earning two Academy Award  nominations, including Best Actor for Denzel Washington in what stands as one of the most egregious snubs in Oscar history.

In the end, Poitier’s words meant that no one would play Alex Haley. (He had previously been played by James Earl Jones in miniseries Roots, while Laurence Fishburne would play him in narrator form in the 2016 remake.) But the film would be incredibly well-received, earning two Academy Award  nominations, including Best Actor for Denzel Washington in what stands as one of the most egregious snubs in Oscar history.

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