LOS ANGELES

A MONTH before the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony, the host, Chris Rock, stirred things up by declaring that he planned to hand Jamie Foxx a statue for his performance in “Ray” whether Oscar voters picked him or not. (Mr. Foxx won, mooting the point.)

Mr. Rock will not be running the show this time around. But he still has plenty of opinions, including some thoughts about the honors due Eddie Murphy, one of the season’s more unlikely Oscar hopefuls for his supporting role in “Dreamgirls.”

“There would be no Chris Tucker, me, Martin Lawrence or any new young black comic today if Eddie hadn’t paved the way for us, especially in films,” Mr. Rock said in a recent interview.

“Without Eddie, then Chris, Martin and myself would have only have made as many movies in our career as Jude Law made the last three months,” he continued. “Peter Sellers got tons of credit for doing multiple characters, but that was just him doing him. Eddie is all those wacky family characters he portrays in ‘Coming to America’ and ‘The Nutty Professor’ pictures. Eddie should have got multiple Oscars for the multiple characters that he played in those movies alone.”