Steve Martin as Bobby Bowfinger and Eddie Murphy in his ‘Jiff Ramsey’ persona.

About an outsider group of Hollywood hopefuls who are very short on money but very long on desire - that’s how Steve Martin describes Bowfinger, which he wrote and in which he plays the title role. ‘They end up making their movie with the biggest star in the world. Except he doesn’t know he’s in it!”

That, in essence, is the pitch that attracted Martin’s co-star Eddie Murphy to the movie. “It’s silly and clever at the same time,” says Murphy. “That’s what’s so good about it.”

What makes Bowfinger sillier and cleverer is that Murphy doesn’t just play Kit Ramsey, Hollywood’s top action star, the guy who is duped into starring in Bobby Bowfinger’s movie by a series of hidden cameras, ingenious encounters and a dog in high heels: he also plays Kit’s somewhat dim-witted brother, Jiff. “People bring out the best in Eddie Murphy,” says Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times. “The more of them he plays on screen, the drop-dead funnier he becomes.”

So in Bowfinger, you get two Murphys for the price of one: Kit Ramsey, the paranoid superstar who is convinced that aliens are out to get him; and Jiff, with braces on his teeth and a drive to succeed that peaks at wanting to be sent out for coffee that people really, y’know, need. He also gets conned into doing his own stunts, crossing eight lanes of crowded freeway having been persuaded that all the cars are driven by stunt men. It’s one of the movie’s funniest scenes, and Jiff does it twice. “The stunt drivers are very impressed,” Bowfinger tells him.

As it turns out, the casting of Murphy as the Ramsey brothers in Bowfinger was a left-field idea that came from producer Brian Grazer. But it was one that immediately appealed to Martin. “I wrote Eddie’s role for a white actor,” he admits, “but then Brian suggested Eddie and I thought it was brilliant. And,” he adds, “it was fantastic, especially for me as the writer, because I’d see Eddie bring the words to life and make them hilariously funny. You just thank him.”

There’s another scene in Bowfinger where Murphy, as Jiff, gets a full-on view of the breasts of aspiring movie star Daisy (Heather Graham), who thinks that Bobby Bowfinger’s movie will put her name in lights. What we get, however, is a full-on view of Murphy, as a series of expressions and reactions chase one another across his amazed face, finally shaping up into an expression of winning childish delight that takes away any hint of prurience. “That is... awesome,” Jiff finally manages to say.