In Being Eddie, Eddie Murphy is peeling back the curtain.

The new Netflix documentary gives fans an unprecedented look at the icon’s nearly 50-year career — from his breakout as a teenage comic on Saturday Night Live to redefining comedy, drama, and even animation across generations. For the first time, Murphy opens his doors and his mind to reflect on what it all meant.

When speaking with Blavity’s Shadow and Act about the project, Murphy admitted the documentary helped him realize how young he really was when everything started. “That’s the biggest realization that I have when I’m watching this documentary, when I go like, ‘What’s the big …’ It’s how young I was,” he said. “Not just Saturday Night Live, just all of this stuff that [were these] career-defining moments. Really, I’m a baby, I’m 22 years old when I’m doing Beverly Hills Cop, and I turned 20. I’m 21 when I do 48 Hrs. I turned 21 on that set, so it’s like a baby. Saturday Night Live, I’m a teenager. Now, I look back on [it], I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, I was just a little baby out there.’”

That early stardom didn’t come with much support. “There’s no hip-hop yet. There’s no Oprah, there’s no Michael Jordan. None of that s**t,” he said. “I was just out there. I was just out there as a baby all by myself. And I trip about that when I’m like, ‘Wow.’”

Why he isn’t moved by awards

Directed by Oscar-winning editor Angus Wall, Being Eddie showcases not only Murphy’s expansive career but also the mindset that’s kept him grounded through decades of fame. While many in Hollywood chase awards as a marker of success, Murphy’s approach has always been different.

“Yeah. I’ve never done anything because I was trying to get an award for it,” he said. “For years and years, when I would get awards, I would just give them to my mother, and my mother had all of that stuff. Now, I have a cabinet with all of that stuff, and it’s almost like a photo album going through an old photo album being like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s 40 years ago.’”

He said the awards look nice, and it’s cool to receive them, but they’ve never been what drives him. “It’s never been a validation,” he explained. “I’ve never been like, ‘Oh, yeah, I get this award and that means that I’ve arrived.’ I always felt like I was the s**t and I could shut it down and I turn it out. No matter who you gave the award to, I’m going to get mine. I never felt like I needed the trophy to feel like I never had imposter syndrome and self-doubt. That was never ever it for me.”

The documentary also revisits his 1988 Oscars moment — when he made a pointed comment about how the Academy excluded Black artists. Murphy noted that the press barely acknowledged it at the time

A legacy of reinvention

Murphy pushed back on the idea that his career has been limited to action comedies. Watching Being Eddie, he said, reminded him how intentional he’s always been about doing a range of projects — including Black romantic comedies like Boomerang — and that still holds true today.

“I’ve always tried to do different types of things, and one of the reasons that I blew up when I did and the way I did and for as long as I have is because I do different stuff,” he said. “I never kept it in one place, and I always do. I try to do stuff that has universal themes, a universal appeal that somebody on the other side of the world will do stories that resonate with no matter where you’re from at a human level, you could get with this. I think that’s why my stuff has worked for so long.”

“I think that’s why my stuff has worked for so long,” he said.

Being Eddie is now streaming on Netflix.