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Pete Davidson learned a few lessons from his self-proclaimed “hero” Eddie Murphy while on the set of their Prime Video movie, The Pickup.
The Saturday Night Live alum, 31, tells PEOPLE he picked up a thing or two from the comedy legend, including keeping one’s circle small, something he admits he struggles with.
“I’ve been guilty of having 700 friends in the green room,” Davidson jokes. “People I just met or are just in the crew, and then I’m like, ‘Why did they not have my best interest in mind?’ ”
Courtesy Amazon MGM Studios
So watching how Murphy, 64, “moved” really changed Davidson’s perspective on the people he surrounded himself with.
“He has a really small crew, and it’s the same people for a really long time, and I think that’s really important to have an efficient career and just overall life in this business,” the King of Staten Island actor says. “You have to be able to trust who’s around you, and you got to be able to move a certain type of way.”
He adds, “I’m not Eddie Murphy by any means, but especially when you’re at his level, you need to be able to trust everyone around you.”
And for Davidson, that means trimming down his inner circle to just three people, he jokes. “Pretty much after that movie I was like, ‘Okay, I have three friends. Here’s who they are. Here’s who I have to trust and share things with,’ ” he tells PEOPLE.
Beyond just keeping his group tight-knit, Davidson also observed how Murphy prioritized his family on set — which was particularly enlightening given his own impending fatherhood as he is expecting his first child with girlfriend Elsie Hewitt.
Davidson shares how the “only time” Murphy got nervous was when his kids came to set, one of whom had never seen him work and he wanted to impress them.
“He was like, ‘She’s never seen me perform before and I want to do a good job,’ ” Davidson recalls. “And I was like, ‘That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.’ ”
Amazon MGM Studios
Beyond everything, Davidson says, Murphy’s dedication to family stuck with him the most. And so did the times when Murphy brought his whole brood along, introducing his kids to the cast and crew and having the younger ones live with him and attend school there.
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Davidson says that time is coming up for him, too — and he couldn’t be more excited. Until then, though, working with Murphy was the most recent dream he saw come true.
“I couldn’t ask for a better setup. I literally just got to hang in a box with him for three months, just us,” he says, referring to the truck in which he and Murphy filmed many of their scenes. “It was like a fantasy I wrote.”
The Pickup is now streaming on Prime Video.
