Ryan Reynolds believes Eddie Murphy should have won an Oscar — but not for the movie you're thinking of

It's not for one of Murphy's more serious turns in films like "Dreamgirls" or "Dolemite is My Name."

The 1997 Oscars wouldn't have went down like they did if Ryan Reynolds was in charge.

The Deadpool & Wolverine actor believes that comedy should receive more serious consideration and acclaim from awards bodies, and revealed one particular comedy performance that he thinks should have won an Oscar in an interview with the Variety Awards Circuit podcast. "We sort of unnecessarily hurdle ourselves over comedy as a craft, and if you ask me, one of the greatest injustices is that Eddie Murphy doesn't have an Oscar for The Nutty Professor or The Klumps," Reynolds said.

The Free Guy star expressed immense admiration for Murphy's performance in the 1996 comedy, which saw the Beverly Hills Cop actor portray seven distinct characters under heavy prosthetics, often in the same scene. "Just the fact that he could sit at a table and be 10 different characters at one table, that is singular," Reynolds said. "And that is a kind of talent that, I don't know that we've at this stage in our scientific journey of life could understand fully."

Murphy has played multiple roles in a number of his films, including The Nutty Professor's 2000 sequel The Klumps, Coming to America, Vampire in Brooklyn, Bowfinger, The Adventures of Pluto Nash Norbit, Meet Dave, Coming 2 America, and Candy Cane Lane. However, his only Oscar nomination came for the musical drama Dreamgirls in 2007, though The Nutty Professor did win the Oscar for Best Makeup.

Related: The 21 best (and worst) Eddie Murphy movies

Although Reynolds' Nutty Professor take might sound outlandish, he's not the only person to make an impassioned argument in its favor. In 2006, as Murphy began to receive awards buzz for Dreamgirls, Chris Rock shouted out the actor's widespread comedic talents. "Peter Sellers got tons of credit for doing multiple characters, but that was just him doing him," Rock told The New York Times. "Eddie is all those wacky family characters he portrays in Coming to America and The Nutty Professor pictures. Eddie should have got multiple Oscars for the multiple characters that he played in those movies alone.”

Related: Shrek 5 officially announced with Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz returning

Anchorman star David Koechner had similar praise in 2015. "One of the greatest performances of all time," he said of Murphy's Nutty Professor turn during an interview with The Herd podcast. "Who else can do that? [Mike] Myers gets close, Sellers gets close, but what Eddie Murphy did was create a personality, not a voice, a personality for each one of those characters. That is amazing. It's remarkable."

Murphy himself suggested that the film is among his finest work earlier this year. After a New York Times journalist said that Bowfinger is their favorite of his performances, the actor told the outlet,  "Better than The Nutty Professor?" He continued, "I like Bowfinger, but Nutty Professor — that stuff is real. Those makeups that Rick Baker did, that turn you into another person and there’s no sign of me: I could walk in a room, and a person wouldn’t even know it was me. Let’s put it this way: I like Bowfinger, but I could think of 20 other actors that could have played that role. I can’t think of another person that could do Nutty Professor."

Related: Eddie Murphy on his son dating Martin Lawrence's daughter: 'Our gene pool is gonna make this funny baby'

Elsewhere in the Variety interview, Reynolds pointed to Murphy as one of his primary inspirations as a performer. "When you're a young person, you're trying on personalities like clothing," he explained. "I would see Stand by Me, and I was like, 'That is incredible, just as a film.' I would see Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I would see Stripes. I would watch Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy, and I would be doing, like trying on clothes as a personality, I would be doing impressions of all of these people, all of the time, memorizing how they moved, what they did."

Listen to Reynolds full appearance on Variety Awards Circuit above.

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