Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F Star Bronson Pinchot Recalls Sudden Fame From First Movie

We talked to Bronson Pinchot about his experiences after Beverly Hills Cop came out in 1984.

By Jamie Jirak

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix, and the fourth installment to the Eddie Murphy-led franchise is now the streamer's most-watched movie premiere of the year. While fans are delighted to see Murphy back as Axel Foley, the character he first played in 1984, he's not the only familiar face from the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. In fact, you'll spot a handful of returning stars, including Bronson Pinchot, who played Serge in Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop III. The character was first introduced in the first film's art gallery scene, and Pinchot instantly became recognized for his "lemon twist" line. During a recent chat with ComicBook, Pinchot reflected on his sudden fame from the first film, and what it was like to get recognized 40 years ago.

"Five minutes after the movie came out, I was having a little fruit salad at this place and there's this kind of leather, biker guy and his girlfriend, they'd obviously been up all night," Pinchot began. "We were the only three people in the place. And I do remember his name because, he looks over at me all haggard and he goes, 'Hey, do the accent.' Isn't that endearing? Like, don't you want to do it? So I said, 'You know, I think I'm just gonna eat my fruit salad.' So there's this ghastly long pause and then his girlfriend whose back was to me, lots of pimples on her back. She goes, 'Maybe he thinks he's too good for you, Vinny.' Vinny says to her, not to me, 'Well, then maybe I'll have to kill him.'"

"My eye glides over to the young terrified woman who's behind the cash register and she pantomimes, 'Do you want me to call the police?' I don't know why I said no, but I said no. So ever so slowly ... like when you're attacked by a bobcat ... I get into my Jeep, Vinny gets into his car and waits till I get up in the hills and then tries to run me off the road because I said I wouldn't do it. So I just do it now!"

"The reason that you see people like nowadays if you see any of this crappy footage – poor Ben Affleck. He's walking to his car. He's probably just gone to go get some Metamucil ... there's a paparazzo standing in his car going, 'Hey, Ben, how about you and Jen?' And he's already got his face like, 'I've done this for 40 years. I'm not going to say anything. I'm just gonna suffer.' ... And he's had all this practice. I'm 25 years old, sleeping on the floor. No money. I mean, no money, no food, and all of a sudden I'm everywhere, and this guy Vinny is gonna kill me for not doing the accent. So it's a curve, it's a learning curve." 

"The moment that it happened, and I'll never forget it," he added when asked the moment he knew his life had changed from Beverly Hills Cop. "I'm not exaggerating ... I was so poor, I couldn't even afford a magazine. So somebody calls me up, the movie had been out for six minutes, and somebody called me up and said, 'You gotta go see Newsweek.' And I said, 'Well, I can't go, I can't afford' ... What is it? 75 cents? They said, 'Go pick up a copy.' So I walked from my crappy apartment in Hollywood  ... Open Newsweek. It says something like, 'A singular, unknown actor, does this thing.' And so I'm like, 'Oh, that's nice.' I'm walking home ... baking under the sun, not a tree for a mile in any direction. And there's a car coming toward me on the asphalt, but they're screaming and then they pull up onto the sidewalk."

"And they stopped five inches from me and I think, 'I'm going to die. They're all on meth,'" he recalled. "And instead, they all piled out and started to jump up and down and talk about Serge, and the movie had been out three minutes. It's funny because, you know, there's no comedy writer better than fate. There it was in a nutshell. It was like, you could die or you could get a hug, and you'll never know again once you tickle people's funny bones. So they drove onto the sidewalk, they were just excited, they didn't want me to get away."

You can watch our interview with Pinchot at the top of the page.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix. 

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