Noah Wyle wanted Eddie Murphy’s autograph when he was about nine. Instead, he says, he received a blunt instruction to leave the comedian alone, a childhood encounter he still remembers more than four decades later.
The 55-year-old The Pitt star recalled the meeting during the October 27 episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. He blushed while recounting the exchange, although both actors laughed as he described what happened.
Wyle had recognized Murphy from Saturday Night Live and approached him as a young viewer who enjoyed his work. He told the comedian how much he liked watching him on the NBC sketch show.
Murphy was still a young performer himself. He joined SNL in 1980 and remained in the cast until 1984, years before Wyle became a familiar television face as John Carter on ER.
Murphy Questioned Why He Was Watching ‘SNL’ So Late
According to Wyle’s account, Murphy initially responded with a question about his bedtime. “What are you doing up that late?” the comedian asked, as Wyle recalled in the conversation covered by TheWrap.
Wyle laughed nervously, then repeated his request for a signature. This time, he said, Murphy answered, “F— off, man.” Poehler asked how old he had been when the exchange took place.
Page Six reported that Murphy’s representative did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
The Experience Shaped How Wyle Treats Young Fans
Once Wyle became an actor receiving autograph requests himself, he remembered what it had felt like to approach someone he admired. He told Poehler that the encounter influenced his willingness to sign for children.
He singled out fans around the age he had been at the time, saying he responds especially quickly when a nine-year-old asks for his signature. The memory had also become familiar to his family through repeated retellings at home.
His Daughter Made the Autograph He Never Received
For Wyle’s birthday last year, his youngest daughter, Frances, used the story to solve the problem of what to give him. She printed a photograph of Murphy and added a friendly handwritten inscription.
Addressing her father as Noah, she wrote that he was a great kid and signed Murphy’s name. Her version contained one small giveaway: she spelled his first name “Eddy.”
Frances also invented an explanation for how she had obtained the signature. She told her father that she and her mother had run into Murphy and secured the autograph he had always wanted. Wyle called it “the greatest gift,” according to Entertainment Weekly. He keeps the photograph framed in his office.