Is Eddie Murphy ready to retire his fat suit? In an interview with Rolling Stone, the actor and comedian hinted that he may be ready to end his reign as king of the family comedy, and return to his edgier stand-up roots.

"I don't have any interest in that right now," he says of films like his successful Nutty Professor franchise and Norbit. "There's really no blueprint, but I'm trying to do some edgy stuff."

For those holding out hope for Beverly Hills Cop IV, bad news: "They're not doing it," he says. "None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn't be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong." Murphy did say, however, he's working on putting together a TV version of the hit franchise, which he would produce but not star in.

Murphy contends that pickiness is a luxury he's earned after years of hard work and success. "I only want to do what I really want to do, otherwise I'm content to sit here and play my guitar all day. I always tell people now that I'm a semi-retired gentleman of leisure, and occasionally I'll go do some work to break the boredom up."

One thing that could tear him from his life of leisure is the lure of a stage and a microphone. "If I ever get back on stage, I'm going to have a really great show for you all," he says. "An hour and a half of stand-up and about 40 minutes of my shitty band.... But I haven't done it since I was 27, so why f**k with it? But that's just weighing both sides. It comes up too much for me to not do it again. It's like, when it hits me, I'll do it, eventually."

He'll have a chance to test his material come January, when he hosts the Academy Awards.

(Photo: John Ricard)