"I had been doing stand-up. I started doing stand-up when I was 15, so I got like three years before I get that audition. The first audition is literally a guy sitting in a room by himself, and he just says, 'Make me laugh,'" Murphy said. "Well, that would be daunting to most people, but because I had been doing stand-up I had 15 to 20 minutes of an act. I was used to going up late at night at the Comic Strip. When you’re a young comic you don’t get good spots, so you’re going up in front of five or six people anyway."
The comedian then went to explain what he did for his five-minute audition, which included impressions of Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Ali, Howie Cosell and Bill Cosby.
"He didn’t laugh at anything. I was just doing it, he was just sitting there watching me, and looking me up and down. After I did all my shit, he was like, 'Thank you,'" Murphy recalled.
Murphy thought he had lost the opportunity, until he was brought back for two additional auditions, one of which included reading lines with the rest of the cast members. He ended up fairing much better during this audition, considering it involved a word-association sketch he was very familiar with.
"I had seen that sketch a bunch of times. So it was like, This is my audition? [Laughs.] I didn’t even need the paper! Did it. Crushed it. And got the show," he said.
Murphy hosted SNL back in December. His monologue included cameos from Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan.
