Eddie Murphy has a new movie coming out called Mr. Church. Shockingly, Murphy was cast as the “savior” role, but after watching the trailer, there are some other disturbing tropes at play. Considering it’s a true story, maybe it won’t be hit with some of that criticism. Here’s the trailer:

So far, Murphy is getting “Oscar buzz” for the role, and it’s being seen as a departure for him, mostly because he is known for comedic work and this looks more like drama/melodrama. Murphy hasn’t been nominated for anything since he lost the Oscar to Alan Arkin in 2007, and Eddie hasn’t been in a movie in years. So there’s the “comeback narrative,” which could work in Eddie’s favor when it comes to time to wage an Oscar campaign, I guess. Plus, he seems pretty chilled out and happy to do some standard promotion. He even appeared on The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast – his first-ever podcast interview! – to talk about the movie, life, Saturday Night Live and more. Some highlights:

Taking a break: “I haven’t been in the movies the last five years because I was giving the audience a break. After a while, the audience needs a break and you need a break, too. You start taking each other for granted. I’m like, ‘I know what you all like!’ And the audience is like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know what he’s gonna do!’ So you’re taking each other for granted, and the next thing you know you’re starring in [the 2002 flop The Adventures of] Pluto Nash.”

He doesn’t drink or do drugs: “I don’t drink — I don’t have like this moral thing about it, I just don’t do it — and I didn’t get high.” He recalls a night out with Robin Williams, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd when “Belushi and Robin Williams offered me some blow and I didn’t take it, and Belushi called me a ‘tightass.’ Then, years later, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a trip.'” Imagining what might have happened if he’d accepted the drugs, he says, “The Eddie Murphy story would have been totally different,” adding, “There are a bunch of things like that that I look back on and be like, ‘Wow.’ And that just reaffirms my faith. I know that God is real. There’s been a bunch of times when I could have wound up crashing and burning.”

His work in The Nutty Professor: “It may not have gotten the critical brouhaha stuff, but people really responded to that movie. Actor-actors that you guys really like, when I talk to them, they go into Nutty Professor.”

What happened when Alan Arkin won the Oscar: Rumors started that Murphy stormed out of the ceremony in disgust, but he has emphatically stated that he felt Arkin was a worthy winner and that he was just uncomfortable being comforted by others as if something tragic had happened to him. “In my office I have a bunch of stuff like that,” he says. “I’ve won a bunch of stuff like that.” (He cites the Mark Twain Award as an example.) “It’s not like every time I was up for something I got ‘snubbed.'”

He doesn’t blame the Academy for #OscarsSoWhite: “They choose from the movies that get made. They don’t have a hand in what gets made, you know? They can’t control it if nothing came in that black folks was in, or just two or three things that black folks was in was Oscar-worthy. So it’s not them. The studios gotta start making more stuff where black folks get quality stuff. But I can’t trip about that because I’ve been making movies for 35 years and I’ve played everything from an old lady to a donkey, so I can’t be on here talking about, ‘They don’t give us enough roles’ and diversity. It’s like, ‘Mothaf—a, I’ve seen you as a donkey and an old lady, so I don’t want to hear sh-t!’ But, for the other actors, they need to make better stuff, more stuff, more diverse stuff.”

He’s disconnected: “I used to be the hippest of them all. I used to know everything about everything. I used to read about everything that was going on and I knew everybody’s name and anybody in pop culture. Anything that was written about me I would read. And for the last maybe 20 years — I haven’t read a newspaper in 20 years, or read a corporate magazine, I don’t read corporate magazines or stuff, I don’t read stuff about me. I really don’t read stuff about me. Like, if there’s an article about me, someone has to read through it before they even give it to me. I don’t want to see anything that has anything negative. I don’t want to read any of that sh-t. So I don’t know what y’all think. I don’t have a computer, I don’t have email, I don’t have any of that sh-t. I don’t need to be on social media interacting with the fans, tweeting that I just ate strawberries…. I don’t feel any pressure to live up to any whatever — expectation — anyone may have.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

He also says that while he wasn’t hurt about losing the Oscar, he would like to win one at some point, and suggests that the Academy would likely give him a Lifetime Achievement Oscar when he’s 90 years old and can barely function. Which… is probably true. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie never wins an Oscar for a particular role, but eventually he’ll get those lifetime achievement awards and such. Also: that John Belushi story was whack, right? Crazy.

Photos courtesy of WENN.