Eddie Murphy Admits He 'Cringes' at Some of His Old Stand-Up Material as He Prepares for Return

Eddie Murphyis going to approach his return to stand-up a lot differently than in his heyday.

Murphy, 58, is set to return to the stage for the first time in 30 years for a new Netflix special. He told host Al Roker on Friday’sTodaythat he’ll be working with different material now that he’s older and a father of 10.

“Last time I did stand-up I was 27 years old. I look at some of my old stuff and cringe. Sometimes I’m like, I can’t believe I said that! I’m 58 now so I don’t think I’m gonna approach it the same way,” he said.

“You gotta go to the clubs, I haven’t started doing that yet,” he said. “I never wrote stuff out on paper. I would be having a conversation and I’d say something funny. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s funny,’ and I would go try it on stage. That’s never stopped, I’ve just stopped taking it to the stage.”

Murphy previously hinted that he might be nearing a return to stand-up inJerry Seinfeld‘sComedians in Cars Getting CoffeeNetflix show. The topic came up when Seinfeld lightly teased Murphy from staying away from the format that he excelled in for so long.

“You know that you not doing stand-up drives people crazy — you know that, right?” Seinfeld asked Murphy.

Murphy said he’d heard that before and mentioned the late comedian Don Rickles urged him to return to the stage before his death.

“I’m going to do it again,” Murphy said. “Everything just has to be right. You have to get up there and start working out. [I] still gotta go to the comedy club.”

source: people.com