Eddie Murphy got real about his experience as a 61-year-old man starring in a high-energy action movie, Beverly Hills Cop 4. While speaking at the 2023 Golden Globe Award show, he admitted that filming the fourth film in a classic trilogy was more than a bit challenging for him physically.

Reprising his role as Detective Axel Foley was “just really, really hard,” Murphy said as he accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award on January 10.

The actor and comedian said, “It was so, so hard…because I did ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ when I was 21.”

Murphy continued, “I’m 61, so to go play a character you played when you was 21, and it physical and action movie, and you know it was just really, really hard,” Murphy expressed. 

The Coming to America star recalled

one particular time for a scene.

“There was one time when I was supposed to be running down some steps, and the director Mark Malloy after the take, came and said, ‘Can we get another one faster with a greater sense of urgency?’ I was like, ‘Get the f*** out of here, yo.’ I was maxed out. I was maxed out.”

“It’s emotional because, like I said, I was 61, and I was doing action scenes, and you see my heart beating through my chest because I had many times where I felt like I was going to die on the set. Before the movie, I said to Jerry, ‘Listen, I’m 61 and don’t ask me to do s*** that you wouldn’t ask Morgan Freeman to do.’” Murphy finished, “I found myself running and jumping, rolling around, and it was a lot.”

Beverly Hills Cop 4 began filming in August of 2022 and is headed by Netflix, starring Taylour Paige and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.