Jerry Bruckheimer: Eddie knows funny. 

Eddie Murphy: I don't… I don't want to say that, but I do know a banana is funnier than a potato.

[all laugh]

["Axel F" playing] 

Eddie Murphy: Now, we all make lots of movies. Not all of them, you know, stay around forever. Like, Beverly Hills Cop has been around forever, and it plays all the time, and it doesn't get old. And you can watch it with the kids that come up… It's like to be in a movie that, you know, just works. 

Judge Reinhold: It was a great chemistry. That's one of the things that I remember. 

Jerry Bruckheimer: The most interesting thing for me is… When we went to New Jersey on the first one, Eddie was living there. I went there with my partner, Don. We were scared to death to pitch to Eddie the movie. We sat there, we told him the whole story, and Eddie just stared at us. He smiled and he said, "Yeah, let's go do this." [laughs]

[Eddie laughs] 

Eddie Murphy: We still had no idea it was gonna turn into what it turned into. 

Jerry Bruckheimer: You know, this is the highest-grossing R-rated movie until The Hangover. Truly unbelievable if you think about it.

Eddie Murphy: I remember after we did the movie, the script supervisor, she doesn't have a screen credit 'cause she thought the movie is gonna be so horrible. She was like, "I don't want a screen credit." "I don't want anyone to know I had anything to do with this movie." And so when we did it, it was new. Like I said, it was a new thing. They'd never seen it like that. They didn't know what to expect when we were doing it.

["Axel F" playing] 

Eddie Murphy: We were trying to develop this movie for 15, 20 years. And the way it came together was we got the original producer, who produced the movie, and he put it… he knew the recipe, and he put it all together.

[CLIP] John Ashton (as John Taggart): What do you want from me, Axel?

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): I want you to start being a cop again. 

[CLIP] John Ashton (as John Taggart): Get out of my ******* office! Now! 

Eddie Murphy: Going into it, I was like, "We finally have a good script." "Now we gotta go and make the movie." I don't know if the movie has been made until after, you know, you see it. 'Cause they make movies in the editing room.

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): Hey!

[CLIP] Judge Reinhold (as Billy Rosewood): Hey!

[CLIP] John Ashton (as John Taggart): Jesus!

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): You two are the worst ******* surveillance team that ever lived. 

Judge Reinhold: First thing that Eddie said when he got in the back of the unmarked car… I haven't seen him in at least 10 years. And he said, "Well, we still resemble our characters."

[all laughing] 

Eddie Murphy: We still look like a little… 

Jerry Bruckheimer: I think that, you know, there's always something in movies that you love and you wanna reminisce about, and this is one of those scenes.

John Ashton: We were shooting in Downtown LA, and one of the young crew guys came up and he said, "Man, it gives me the chills to see you three guys back in that car." He said, "I was only eight years old when the first one came out." "It gives me chills to see this." 

Eddie Murphy: Imagine now, 40 years ago, it's like, you could be in your seventies now and you're like, "What, I… I was in my thirties when this movie came out?" That's a ******* trip.

[CLIP] Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Bobby Abbott): Detective Foley. Detective Bobby Abbott. 

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): Can you get me Taggart, please? 

[CLIP] Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Bobby Abbott): Chief Taggart? Pretty sure he's busy. 

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): Well, can you tell him it's Axel Foley? 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I am one of those people that grew up with Beverly Hills Cop. When you're a kid, what your older brother likes means a lot. You know what I mean? So I always had this, like, real fondness for this character. So, to get to be in this movie, it was something special. 

Taylour Paige: And you're actually the Beverly Hills cop. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I am the Beverly Hills cop. He's the Detroit cop. I'm the Beverly Hills cop.

[all laugh]

[CLIP] Taylour Paige (as Jane Saunders): Mr. Michaels. 

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): Please call me Red. 

[CLIP] Taylour Paige (as Jane Saunders): What? What are you doing? You said you were leaving town. 

Taylour Paige: When it came about, I actually, to be honest, was considering quitting the business, and this came unexpected and kind of reinspired the fire. The first day Eddie and I met was on the last day. I asked him, "What does it feel like to know that you've made someone on Earth laugh at some point?" And he was like, "Ha ha, I have, haven't I?"

Eddie Murphy: I didn't say it like that.

Taylour Paige: Yes, you did. 

Eddie Murphy: I said, "I have, haven't I?" like that? That didn't sound like… I don't remember saying…

[laughing]

Taylour Paige: I did not do it like that.

Eddie Murphy: “I guess I did. I guess I did make them all laugh.” 

Taylour Paige: I did not do it like that. 

Eddie Murphy: Ho ho ho. “How does it feel like to have made the whole world laugh? He he he. I guess I have. Ho ho ho.” I don't remember that.

Taylour Paige: Okay, Santa Claus. 

Eddie Murphy: That's how you made it. "He he he, I guess I did."

[all laugh] 

Eddie Murphy: "They're laughing all around the world."

[all laugh]

["Axel F" playing]

John Ashton: There is no banana in the tailpipe. 

Eddie Murphy: Yes, and I fought to make sure there would be no banana in the tailpipe up until the very last day of the movie. Yeah. Whenever we hit a little speed bump and we needed a joke, the director would say, "How about the banana in the tailpipe?" "No! No, we can't do it!" He's like, "People really wanna see this." "No, they don't!"

John Ashton: You know, I've gone to autograph sessions and people bring me plastic bananas to sign.

Judge Reinhold: Bananas. Yeah.

Taylour Paige: That’s really funny.

Eddie Murphy: Maybe, I think, it's people that realize that you could really do that, I think. It's like, "Can you really put… Will that really work?"

John Ashton: And you remember in the original script, it was a potato, and you changed it to a banana, which was a lot funnier. 

Jerry Bruckheimer: Eddie knows funny. 

Eddie Murphy: I don't… I don't wanna say that. But I do know a banana is funnier than a potato.

[all laugh]

["Axel F" playing] 

Eddie Murphy: I was just looking at the back of the record. Most of those songs were hit records and the "Axel F" theme became this classic theme. And it's just exciting to have, you know, some… some new music and have this brother be the one that… that's on it. 

Lil Nas X: Yeah, I'm happy to do it. I hope, you know, I'm not slaughtered by, like, the people that love the original. 

Eddie Murphy: Nah, your track is bananas, your version. If you like--

Taylour Paige: "Bananas."

Eddie Murphy: Yeah, your track is bananas. Yo, I love it.

Taylour Paige: Pun intended.

Eddie Murphy: Oh, no pun was intended. I just said it.

[all laugh] 

Lil Nas X: The first time I heard it… 

Eddie Murphy: Unless you're gonna say, "First time I heard it, I thought this is bull****."

Lil Nas X: Oh!

Eddie Murphy: No, don't say that. 

Lil Nas X: The actual first time I heard it, it was Peter Griffin, like… Peter Griffin from Family Guy, he was doing, like, the hum to it. And I was like, "That's actually a nice little melody from Family Guy." And then I, like, saw the movie, like, years later. Yeah. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I remember the "Axel F" theme was one of the first things I ever learned to play on the piano. I was a kid when it was popular. I told you this already. Like, my big brother loved this movie. And so, he would put on the Faltermeyer version. 

Taylour Paige: And now, your son can play it. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: He can play it. Yes, he learned it. 

Eddie Murphy: I knew that the movie was hot, and the music was hot, and everything worked, but we had no idea that all those songs would become, like, hit records. I've seen Obama go somewhere and… and, uh… somewhere in an Asian country, and, uh, when he came in, they played "Axel F."

Taylour Paige: That's so funny.

Eddie Murphy: They played the "Axel F…" [humming tune] 

Jerry Bruckheimer: When I heard Lil Nas's song, I said, "I love this song. It's a smash. I love it." And we gave it to the editor and I said, "Just put it everywhere. Anywhere you can find a hole." Made her… Part of her theme is… is in… I mean, when you see the movie, you don't realize that a lot of what he did is in the fabric of the movie, and you don't really hear it until towards the end of the film, the full song. 

Lil Nas X: When I made this song, it was, like, from a place of, like, "Okay, what do I do now, in terms of, like, my own, like, career and whatnot?" And it's like I made a metaphor. It's, like, about this person that's like this car driver and they're, like, getting back in the race, and it's like, uh, telling everybody, "Get the **** out of my way! Move," you know, "I'm… I'm here." And we added the… the theme to it. Uh, it came together, like, beautifully. 

Eddie Murphy: Yeah, it just has the energy and everything is… He covered the song and made it his, and at the same time, you still hear those melodies in it from the original, and it just… it just works. Makes it fresh. 

[CLIP] Eddie Murphy (as Axel Foley): This is gonna be fantastic! Trust me.