In the 1980s, Eddie Murphy was one of the funniest comedians on the scene, starring in box office smashes, headlining iconic stand-up specials and pulling his fair amount of weight on Saturday Night Live. As the ‘90s rolled around, Murphy was on the cusp of his cold streak, but still at the point where major directors were after him. That includes Spike Lee, who tried to get him in 1992’s Malcolm X before an Oscar winner talked Murphy out of it.

As Eddie Murphy recalls in the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood (via EW), Malcolm X director Spike Lee approached him to play Alex Haley, who wrote the source novel The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But one legend put a stop to it, telling Murphy that he was of an entirely different ilk than some of his contemporaries. “Around that same time, I...