Taylour Paige says it was “surreal” to be working with Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.
The 33-year-old actress plays Jane Saunders — the estranged daughter of Murphy’s police officer Axel Foley — in the revival of the action comedy franchise and found it incredible to be acting alongside somebody she had grown up watching.
“I grew up watching The Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle. It was like I knew him — it was surreal,” Paige told Empire magazine.
The Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom star revealed that she was desperate to try and make the comedy legend laugh during the making of the film and was determined to maintain a light-hearted atmosphere on the set of the picture, which is being released on Netflix next month.
“The objective was to try and get the man who made the world laugh to laugh. I found it quite fun to crack him. The world often feels like it’s in a chronic coma. And without being too grandiose, I want to be a part of something which helps people to snap out of it,” Paige said.
The new flick is the first Beverly Hills Cop movie in 30 years and Murphy explained that the involvement of producer Jerry Bruckheimer was key to getting him to reprise the role of Axel Foley after the flick spent years stuck in development.
“Jerry Bruckheimer, the original producer. When he got involved, and he started developing the script, and he knew what Beverly Hills Cop was supposed to be.
“When he got back involved, that’s when it all started to come together. Because we tried for years and years, maybe 10, 12 years, and I must have read five or six different scripts, and it was never right. The studio was like, ‘Let’s go. Here it is.’ It was like, ‘It’s just not it.’ ” Murphy told Collider when asked how he was convinced to make another film.
