'Dolemite Is My Name' is just the start of Eddie Murphy's return to the spotlight

NEW YORK - Eddie Murphy sits in a luxurious New York hotel suite, trying to explain what it's like to be caught off guard.

The entertainer, who zoomed into the pop culture zeitgeist some 40 years ago with his stint on "Saturday Night Live" and became Hollywood royalty with a string of blockbusters, including "48 Hours," "Beverly Hills Cop," "Coming to America" and "The Nutty Professor," knows what it's like to have a hit.

But he seems genuinely surprised with the reception and critical acclaim surrounding his latest project, Netflix's "Dolemite Is My Name."

"I really didn't anticipate this level of - what's the word I'm looking for? - I mean, people really, really like the movie," Murphy says about the production, in which he plays the real life Rudy Ray Moore, a struggling African American comic who in the 1970s created a brash, pimp-like alter ego named Dolemite,