Eddie Murphy Eyes a Return to Stand-Up Comedy

The actor teased a stand-up tour in 2020 during an interview on the Netflix podcast 'Present Company.'

Ahead of Eddie Murphy's upcoming hosting gig on Saturday Night Live — in which he returns to the NBC stage for the first time in three decades — the actor has also teased a desire to return to his stand-up comedy roots in 2020.

In an episode of the Netflix podcast Present Company, hosted by Krista Smith, Murphy reflected on his performance career and mentioned that he's planning to embark on a tour. "Next year, I'm going to tour, do some stand-up," he said, before joking that it will be "back to the couch" after that — a reference to his infrequent film projects throughout the years.

Asked whether he's nervous about going back on tour, Murphy said, "No … when I think about doing stand-up, this is the perfect analogy: When you go to the pool and the water is cold, freezing, and you go, 'Ah, the water's fucking cold' before you jump in, that's how I feel with stand-up. It's that feeling of ooh, it's going to be freezing when you first jump in. That's not nervous or scared; that's just I know the water is cold."

In a recent episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, host Jerry Seinfeld brought up the fact that Murphy fans are waiting for his return to stand-up. He said to the actor, "You know that you're not doing stand-up drives everybody crazy, right?" Murphy replied, "I'm going to do it again. Everything has to be just right. You have to get up there and start working out."

In the podcast, Murphy also spoke about his musical hobby, explaining that it takes up most of his spare time and that he has a lot of unreleased music, including collaborations with other artists. "When I'm doing comedy, that's a comic persona. When I'm doing music, it's kind of like that's me. The things that I write about, that's me. You get insight to me, listening to something that I wrote."

While discussing the entertainment industry in the podcast, Murphy said that show business isn't show business anymore. "It was singing, dancing and acting and you've got to have some type of talent or craft, then marketing and distributing, that stuff is show business." He continued, "The last 10 years or so, there's been a big paradigm shift in reality — everything has changed into this other thing — the internet, and all this different stuff. What's entertaining now? You can go on YouTube and put in 'show me two men fighting.' What is entertainment has been broadened over the last 10 years, and the world just shifted into a whole other place."

The actor said he's happy to be here and witness the changes. "So many of my contemporaries — the people who came on the scene when I came on the scene — are all dead. So it's exciting to be here and see the big change."

There are currently no further details on Murphy's stand-up tour.