Eddie Murphy Recalls Sidney Poitier’s Advice to Skip ‘Malcolm X’: “You Are Not Denzel, You Are a Breath of Fresh Air”

In Apple TV+’s new documentary, Murphy opens up about career-defining advice from Poitier, turning down a role in Malcolm X, and navigating uncharted waters in Hollywood as a young Black superstar.

Eddie Murphy revealed during an interview for the Apple TV+ documentary “Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood” (via Entertainment Weekly) that Sidney Poitier advised him not to star in “Malcom X,” which was originally being put together by Poitier’s In the Heat of the Night director Norman Jewison before Spike Lee took over and cast Denzel Washington in the lead role.

“They were talking about doing ‘Malcolm X,’” Murphy said. “Norman Jewison was putting it together. They were gonna use ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ by Alex Haley. And they approached me about playing Alex Haley. 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 fuck with that!’”

“I didn’t know if it was an insult or a compliment,” Murphy added about being compared to Washington and Freeman. “I was like, ‘What?’”

Speculating on why Poitier did not view Murphy in the same field as other actors, Murphy said that he was in “uncharted waters.”

“For Sidney and all those guys, when I showed up, it was something kinda new,” Murphy said. “They didn’t have a reference for me, they couldn’t give me advice, because 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.”

With Spike Lee behind the camera and Washington in the lead role, “Malcolm X” earned critical acclaim and box office success. Washington was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. Murphy would get his shot at more dramatic roles years later in films like “Dreamgirls,” which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

“Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood” is now available to stream on Apple TV+.