Eddie Murphy, 63, Talks About Creating the Newest Beverly Hills Cop Sequel: “I Would Prefer Not to Perform Any Stunts”

Eddie Murphy is thinking back on taking on the iconic Beverly Hills Cop role again, forty years after the film’s original theatrical release.

On Tuesday, June 18, during his segment on Today, Murphy, sixty-three, made light of the fact that filming Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, his latest Netflix film, “felt like old man.”

The comic added, “I did Beverly Hills Cop when I was 21, and I’m 63 now,” in an interview with Al Roker. “I’d prefer not to pull any pranks right now. “I want you to come out of this place and run down those steps,” the director remarked as we were filming. He asked, “Can you come down with more urgency?” once we had finished shooting. Quicker? And I said, “No!”.”

“I said to myself, ‘I’m not taking any action. “Please don’t call me until you give me the same caliber of s— that you would give Morgan Freeman,” he said in jest.

The Beverly Hills Cop film series began with the 1984 original and continues with Axel F. Murphy played Detroit detective Axel Foley in the original film, which follows him when he goes rogue and heads to California to investigate the death of his childhood friend James Russo. Later, he starred in two further sequels, the most recent of which came out in 1994.

“I played the lead in my first film, Beverly Hills Cop. Murphy claimed on Today that “they call me Axel Foley if I travel overseas.” “Axel is a common person. He is the everyday person who steps up to the plate; he is neither a superhero nor a super-cop. It’s probably why many find it appealing. Above all, he is an amusing person.”

In the most recent movie, Axel teams up with new characters played by Taylour Paige and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in addition to returning with franchise mainstays Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton).

“After his daughter’s life is threatened, she (Paige) and Foley team up with a new partner (Gordon-Levitt) and old pals Billy Rosewood and John Taggart to turn up the heat and uncover a conspiracy,” according to an official synopsis of the movie.

In November, Murphy told PEOPLE that he was no longer in his 20s and discussed how he was making the new film at a later age. “It was an action movie,” he continued at the time. Thus, it wasn’t a good one. However, we managed to overcome it.