Eddie Murphy (top left) pals around with fellow comedians Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan backstage at "Saturday Night Live" in 2019, as seen in "Being Eddie."
An 11-year-old Eddie Murphy plays with a Willie Talk ventriloquist doll in the kitchen of his childhood home in Roosevelt, New York, in a vintage picture from "Being Eddie."
Eddie Murphy lets out one of his signature laughs during a conversation at his home for the new Netflix documentary "Being Eddie."

Eddie Murphy’s next movie finds him in the role of a lifetime: himself.

The Netflix documentary “Being Eddie” (streaming Nov. 12) chronicles the comedian’s nearly 50-year career from his start on “Saturday Night Live” to hit movies like “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Shrek.” Many of his famous friends are interviewed, and the film takes the audience into Murphy's home for candid conversations.

“Eddie's somebody that he feels he's known who he is from the beginning,” director Angus Wall tells USA TODAY for the exclusive first look at the documentary. “He's been on a path of destiny since he was a kid. He is an artist where he can express himself through many different ways, not just through comedy or acting, but through music and all these different things.

“He's just got an incredibly flexible mind and spirit. His openness was really refreshing and kind of surprising.”

Wall started working on the movie in 2019, when he was given “unprecedented access” behind the scenes of Murphy’s hosting gig on “SNL.” “We filmed in (Lorne Michaels’) office, which nobody's ever done and nobody may ever do again,” the filmmaker says.

When COVID-19 hit the next year, the director set up cameras in Murphy’s house during lockdown, and the two had about 10 “open and vulnerable” four-hour chats on a wide range of topics. “To me, the movie feels like those conversations; it feels like hanging out with him,” Wall says. “He is exactly who he is in all situations. That said, he can become somebody else easier than anybody I've ever seen.”

Murphy unleashes a flurry of spot-on impressions, from Yul Brynner to Lon Chaney in “The Phantom of the Opera,” while also discussing his many fan-favorite roles. "That's an eight-part limited series, just the movies that he's made," Wall says. Yet Murphy got personal, too: Wall reveals he talks emotionally about the “deep relationship” he had with his older brother Charlie, who died in 2017 of leukemia.

In general, Wall found Murphy insightful, hilarious and spiritual. “He jokes about that in the movie,” Wall says, “but he's had something that's guided him through his whole career.”

A number of familiar faces chime in about the comedian in “Being Eddie,” including Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Foxx and Tracee Ellis Ross. The movie also shows Murphy’s close friendship with fellow comedians Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Kenan Thompson and Tracy Morgan. Though they all have a “reverence” for the 64-year-old star, “he's so easy with them, and there's a deep kinship there that you can feel,” Wall says.

“Eddie is such an icon and he's such a legend, but he's also one of the world's most interesting people. He’s just such a unicorn of a human being.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Being Eddie' teases unprecedented access to Eddie Murphy (exclusive first look)

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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