A dinner invitation from Marlon Brando was an offer Eddie Murphy couldn’t refuse.
Recalling a memorable conversation he had with the late two-time Academy Award winner Brando, Murphy, 63, recalled several interactions with the actor who was known for never holding back with his words.
In an interview The New York Times’ Podcasts “interview,” The “Treasure Spotting” actor recounted the time he was invited to the late actor’s home after his first film role in 1982’s “48 Hours.”
“This was a long time ago, but he said, ‘I can’t stand that kid with the gun,’ and I said, ‘Who’s the kid with the gun?’ And he said, ‘He’s on the poster!'” Murphy called.
“I was like, ‘Clint Eastwood?’ ‘Oh, that guy!’ He called Clint Eastwood ‘that guy,'” he added.
Despite calling Eastwood his “kid,” Brando is only six years older than the Million Dollar Baby star.
Meanwhile, Murphy recalled his first time hanging out with Brando, who passed away in 2004 at the age of 80.
Brand picked up Murphy at the rooftop restaurant of the luxury L’Ermitage Hotel in Los Angeles and then invited him back to his home.
“He picked me up at the hotel, but there was a time mistake and I arrived about 30 minutes late. He was waiting for me in the car,” Murphy recalled.
“We went to his house in Mulholland,” he said, adding that they “talked at length” about Brando’s 1972 film “The Godfather.”
Brando, who played Don Vito Corleone in the hit film, dismissed the praise.
“He was like, ‘Oh, the Godfather.’ Not just ‘The Godfather,’ but acting,” Murphy recalled. “He was like, ‘Acting is crap, anyone can act.'”
Murphy said he still remembers the memory fondly.
“All the celebrities I grew up watching on TV wanted to have dinner with me,” he said.
“I look back now and I think, ‘Wow, that’s amazing – the greatest actor of all time wants to have dinner with you!’ But at the time I just thought, ‘Well, that’s how it goes. You do a movie and Marlon Brando calls you.'”
