Eddie Murphy interview: "The comic used to be [...] the opening act, and I changed it to where the comic can be the main attraction."

David Marchese interviews Eddie Murphy in The New York Times, June 29, 2024. From the end:  

I heard Kevin Hart tell a story on Howard Stern’s show. He talked about a dinner that, I think, Dave Chappelle organized. It was Kevin Hart, you, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Chappelle. And in Hart’s recollection, it’s this lovely moment where you’re all sharing stories, but really it was kind of about showing respect for you. Do you remember that? Yeah, but I don’t remember being the focal point.  

But he really put it in terms of, you laid down the path for those guys. Do you understand what you mean to comedians like Kevin Hart and Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock and Chris Tucker? Well, I didn’t lay down a path. They took their own path. The comic used to be the sidekick, the comic was the opening act, and I changed it to where the comic can be the main attraction. They thought of comics one way, and it was like, no, a comic could sell out the arena, and a comic could be in hundred-million-dollar movies. All of that changed. And with Black actors, it was, like, the Black guy could be the star of the movie, and it doesn’t have to be a Black exploitation movie. It could be a movie that’s accessible to everyone all around the world. 

 One of the other things that stuck with me from our first conversation was that you described getting to do what you do for a living as a blessing. I was thinking about that in the context of how you also said that you knew you were going to be famous. When did you stop taking success for granted? I knew it was a blessing from the beginning.  

So you didn’t take it for granted? I took how fast everything was moving for granted. Like, I guess this happens for everybody; this is what happens when you get famous. So I took all of that for granted but I was never like, “I’m the [expletive].” There’s no higher blessing: You make people laugh, that’s more than anything. That’s more than making them dance, making them feel drama. To look around and see that all the good things that came in my life all came from making somebody laugh? That’s a beautiful feeling, man.