Kevin Bacon on Why Working With Eddie Murphy Was a ‘Bucket List Thing’

Kevin Bacon won’t forget getting the opportunity to work with Eddie Murphy on Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

While recently speaking with People magazine, the actor had nothing but praise for his co-star, saying it was a “bucket list thing to work with him. He is one of our greatest movie stars ever.”

In the Mark Molloy-directed movie, Murphy reprises his character, Detroit detective Axel Foley, four decades after the original 1984 movie, while Bacon plays Captain Grant.

Though the two legendary actors rose to fame around the same time in the 80s, with the original Beverly Hills Cop and Bacon’s Footloose coming out in the same year, they didn’t have many interactions at the time.

“Our paths never crossed in the ’80s. We never worked together. I don’t remember even having met him — I’m sure we probably did, but I don’t remember,” Bacon recalled. But while working together on the fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop, the MaXXXine star commended Murphy for his comedy skills, seemingly without even trying.

“Eddie is somebody who is a very relaxed and loose and present actor. He comes in and famously does a lot of improvising,” Bacon explained. “But when he improvises, there’s improvisation where you can really feel that the improviser is trying to go for a laugh. I never saw him trying to be funny either on camera or off camera, and he’s still hilarious. To the point where sometimes I was about to lose it just because he would look at me.”

“He really watches the person that he is working with,” he continued of Murphy. “I’d noticed that he will pick up on some little thing that the other person is doing or saying or whatever, and kind of put it back to them. It was great. I loved working with him.”

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which debuts on Netflix July 3, sees Murphy return to Beverly Hills after his daughter’s life is threatened, and teams up with new partner Detective Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and old friends John Taggart (John Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) to uncover a conspiracy.