Kevin Hart recently stepped into the 360 zone with Speedy Morman, resulting in a reveal of his picks for a proverbial Mount Rushmore of comedians.
First to earn a mention from the Jumanji franchise star, whose latest standup special Acting My Age debuted on Netflix this week, was the late Richard Pryor.
“Pryor always is on there, first,” Hart said before rolling out his other picks: Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock.
Hart then explained his reasoning behind each choice; he sees Rock, for example, as someone who “became a multi-hyphenate in [the] the business of entertainment” but still stayed “true to the craft.” Chappelle, in Hart’s view, is “just the voice of comedy today,” while Murphy showed “what a star looked like” at an unprecedented scale.
“The idea of 'rockstar' attached to comedy is all Eddie Murphy,” Hart said. “Nobody was bigger. Nobody will ever be in that conversation.”
In fact, without the work of these four comedians, Hart is confident he wouldn’t have experienced his own success.
“They’re all GOATs for different reasons, but they all did something amazing to the business of standup comedy,” Hart said on the latest episode of 360, seen above. “I’m only able to do what the fuck I do at this level because of the doors that they all kicked open separately.”
Hart, Chappelle, and Rock are all featured in Netflix’s recent Eddie Murphy documentary Being Eddie. Directed by Angus Wall, the 102-minute film also pulls from interviews with Tracee Ellis Ross and Jerry Seinfeld, plus Eddie himself.