“Coming 2 America” stars discuss the sequel to “Coming to America” in this interview with CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg.
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00:00 I used to know a barber and Eddie had a similar experience.
00:03 A guy in the barbershop who, when you come in,
00:05 you don't want to sit in his chair,
00:06 you're hoping he's busy 'cause he can't cut hair.
00:09 - Ha ha ha, that's right.
00:11 (upbeat music)
00:13 - From what I understand, this movie,
00:18 the idea for this movie kind of was born
00:20 about four years ago, but I'm curious if there were
00:23 any other kind of plot ideas that were maybe batted back
00:26 and forth before now that just maybe
00:29 just didn't make the distance?
00:30 - Oh, so much has changed.
00:32 In the original idea, Tracy Morgan was gonna be my son.
00:36 (laughing)
00:38 With Tracy, maybe right up to maybe two years before,
00:42 three years into writing it, Tracy was the son still.
00:45 - Yeah.
00:46 - Then we were like--
00:47 - What forced the change?
00:48 - Well, what changed, we was like, you know,
00:50 we met with Tracy a couple of times and was like,
00:54 Tracy looked the same age as me.
00:55 I was like, how are we gonna make this believe
00:59 and then it became like, how are we gonna make this
01:02 make, be right?
01:04 Tracy can't be Leslie's son, so how are we gonna do that?
01:08 It was like, you know, it turned,
01:11 hey, how about Tracy as the uncle?
01:13 And over the years, originally I was supposed to play
01:16 General Izzy that Wesley is playing.
01:20 Like in "Coming to," and "Nutty Professor,"
01:22 I was supposed to play what Dave Chappelle played,
01:24 the comedian that Sherman gets into the thing with.
01:27 It was like, okay, we should have,
01:29 it should be somebody else.
01:30 It shouldn't be one of my characters
01:32 beating up one of my characters.
01:33 It'd work better if, you know,
01:36 like Wesley can make the General menacing.
01:39 - What was it like to actually meet Eddie Murphy
01:41 and Arsenio Hall for the first time?
01:43 And then also just, what was it like to actually like
01:46 work in a scene with King Akeem and Semmy?
01:48 I mean, that's crazy.
01:50 (laughing)
01:52 - Well, first of all, like Arsenio,
01:56 when you talk to Arsenio, it's almost like he's so,
02:01 he's such a great talker and he's so like intuitive.
02:05 It feels like he's interviewing you.
02:06 You feel like you're on his show.
02:08 - You better go to the night show, yeah.
02:09 - It's just who he is.
02:10 He's just so great.
02:11 He's just a great guy.
02:12 And so, you know, I just love his energy.
02:15 And Eddie's just the coolest dude in the room always.
02:18 He's just, his mind's always just going, you know?
02:22 He's always just so like thinking of what's funny, you know?
02:27 He's got a mind for comedy that's unrivaled.
02:30 It's just so like, to work with him together though,
02:32 like what, like it's, you know,
02:35 it's very overwhelming sometimes.
02:38 - Yeah, I think there's also,
02:39 there's also something that happens to you on set
02:41 where you're like, okay, switch off the fan and you,
02:43 these are your colleagues, relax, relax.
02:45 But, you know, as soon as you get to your trailer
02:48 or if you're like, oh, me and Jermaine,
02:50 we'd be like, oh my God, this is happening.
02:53 (laughing)
02:55 - Every day.
02:55 - But, yeah, but so much respect
02:58 for those two individuals, you know?
03:01 Arsenio and Eddie had so much, you know, history,
03:05 legendary status around them, very iconic figures
03:08 who were so down to earth and so humble
03:11 and just so giving to everyone on set.
03:14 They just made the environment really,
03:15 really amazing to work in, you know?
03:17 And as Jermaine said, you know,
03:20 Arsenio is one of the most incredible people
03:22 that you can ever come across.
03:23 He's just so giving and so funny, you know,
03:25 and he'll always tell a joke just before the word action
03:28 or as they say action, he will tell a joke
03:31 and you have to get it together.
03:33 - Yeah, and he'll whisper it in your ear too.
03:36 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:37 (laughing)
03:39 - When I was on that set,
03:40 you know the movie's about a fairy tale.
03:43 - Yeah.
03:44 - Boy meets girl, girl meets boy,
03:45 boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.
03:47 But when I'm standing there and it was a fairy tale to me.
03:51 I had to snap out of that and get back to work.
03:56 And we all worked.
03:57 We followed Eddie and the leader, the first cast,
04:02 we followed their expectations.
04:04 - I must admit your style is far into my kingdom,
04:07 but it's impressive.
04:08 - That's right.
04:09 - Ooh, there you go.
04:10 - Let me hear you say hey, ho.
04:11 - Hey, ho.
04:12 - No, don't do that, that's his mother.
04:13 - Oh, don't you say that.
04:14 - No, not to his mother.
04:15 - You mentioned the training process.
04:17 I mean, I assume that was for the stick fighting?
04:19 - Yeah.
04:20 - Yeah.
04:20 - Can you talk a bit about that process?
04:22 'Cause I mean, you guys kick ass in this film.
04:24 - Thank you, yeah.
04:26 It was a lot of fun.
04:27 It was a lot of fun to beat people up with sticks.
04:30 But yeah, it was cool.
04:32 The training was kind of hard in the beginning.
04:35 So I was very nervous and I shocked myself
04:38 'cause I actually did a lot better
04:39 than I thought that I was going to do.
04:41 And by the end of it,
04:43 I actually got to do one of my full stunts all by myself.
04:48 And it was really cool.
04:50 - Yeah, it was lots of fun,
04:52 not only training, but actually doing it on set.
04:54 'Cause I got to do these huge battle cries
04:57 that took a lot out of me
04:58 and run in and go full force attacking.
05:01 It was so much fun.
05:03 And there was even a point
05:04 when we had Eddie Murphy pinned to the ground.
05:07 That was so much fun.
05:08 - My favorite part of the original film
05:10 is the supporting roles that you guys play.
05:13 The mighty Sharp crew, Reverend Brown, Randy Watson.
05:17 I love all of them so much.
05:19 And just kind of going back to it,
05:20 I'm curious just where those personalities came from
05:23 and how you guys kind of just made them your own
05:26 through your performances.
05:27 - Hey, you know what?
05:28 I remember the first time Eddie was talking
05:31 the story down to me before the first one.
05:35 And I said, "Yeah, but you're the character master.
05:39 "I don't do characters."
05:40 And he says, "No, no."
05:40 He says, "If you do a joke about preaching in your act,
05:43 "that's your preacher character."
05:45 And doing these things kind of a little bit came from life.
05:50 Like I used to know a barber
05:51 and Eddie had a similar experience.
05:53 A guy in the barbershop who, when you come in,
05:55 you don't want to sit in his chair.
05:57 You're hoping he's busy 'cause he can't cut hair.
06:00 We start developing who our barbers were.
06:02 - Yeah, and I think the whole idea of multiple characters
06:06 came about with the great John Landis.
06:11 Coming to America is coming to America
06:13 because of John Landis.
06:14 John Landis is one of the all-time great comedy directors.
06:18 I think he was the one that started the whole,
06:21 the idea of multiple characters.
06:23 - Yeah, Eric, the first treatment I read on a yellow pad
06:27 had no barbershop.
06:28 - He ain't lying.
06:29 - And the very first character was the old Jewish guy.
06:32 - That's right.
06:33 - 'Cause I was able to do that accent.
06:35 He was like, "It'd be hysterical
06:37 if you played that character in a movie."
06:38 And then it all turned into all these other guys.
06:41 - How much did you get to improvise and kind of add to
06:43 and just create a back and forth?
06:45 - Gord Brewer, what he brought to us was a lot of love
06:50 and a lot of freedom and confidence and guidance.
06:55 And we would do one or two on paper
07:00 and then he would let us play.
07:04 And if what we played was better than what was on paper,
07:07 he kept that.
07:08 - That's awesome.
07:10 - 'Cause you can look at the movie
07:11 and tell some of it you can't write.
07:12 - Some of it, yeah, it's just the energy from the room,
07:15 right?
07:16 - Yes, you can't write it.
07:17 - I don't need no handout.
07:19 - Wait a minute.
07:21 - All right, I'm gonna go pack.
07:22 - Okay, baby.
07:23 (laughing)
07:24 - There is a parallel to be made between your characters
07:26 and the relationship between Akeem and Lisa.
07:29 And was that something that you kind of kept
07:31 in the back of your minds just through your performances
07:33 and in your preparation?
07:34 - Yeah, I think it's important for, especially Akeem,
07:39 he's reminded of that in the film
07:41 without giving too much away.
07:43 Our love for each other,
07:46 Marimbae and Lavelle's characters,
07:49 they mirror Lisa and Akeem's and it's something he forgot.
07:54 And it isn't until he has that moment with Lisa
07:59 and me and Marimbae at the church
08:04 where he starts to finally figure it out.
08:07 People forget, over time you just forget
08:11 what you stand for sometimes, who you stand for.
08:15 And I think he needed to just see that
08:18 and to be reminded of that, 'cause we forget
08:19 and we're all human.
08:20 So that parallel was very important for both films,
08:24 I think.
08:25 - Yeah.
08:26 And also one of the most beautiful things
08:29 that people fell in love with the original film is love,
08:34 the theme of love, the love that Prince Akeem had
08:38 for his people, for Zamunda, for his dad,
08:42 and the love that he had for Lisa.
08:45 - If you guys could swap any of those roles
08:49 with each other, which one would you want to play?
08:53 - Oh God, Randy Jackson is hilarious.
08:56 - Randy Watson.
08:57 - Randy Watson is hilarious and Randy Jackson.
08:59 - Randy Jackson's hilarious as well.
09:01 ♪ You can't take away my dignity ♪
09:05 - What about you Eddie, which role of Arsenio's
09:08 would you play from "Coming to America"?
09:10 - Baba.
09:11 - He was gonna play Baba.
09:13 - Originally I was gonna play the witch doctor role,
09:15 but it was too much, it was like a six hour makeup
09:18 and I was going, "Man, I do this six hour makeup."
09:20 And Arsenio was like, "Well, I'll play him."
09:22 I was like, "Okay."
09:24 And then he wound up doing that shit
09:25 and actually saw him cry one day.
09:28 He was at the end of the day, everybody was leaving,
09:31 it was 4.30 in the morning,
09:32 he was sitting in the makeup chair.
09:34 It takes like an hour, two hours to take that stuff off.
09:37 Arsenio was, I don't believe it, he denies it,
09:40 but he was crying.
09:41 He had a little tissue, he said that his eye was tearing
09:43 from the contact lenses, but it was,
09:46 tears don't just keep running down.
09:47 (laughs)
09:51 - He was like this, "This is a confident woman."
09:54 - I was there till 4.40, he said goodbye to me at 10.
09:58 I was, it was hard, hard.
10:01 - Did you get to keep anything from the set?
10:03 - Yeah, I actually got to keep this ring
10:07 that I was wearing a lot in a bunch of different scenes.
10:10 And also, one of my favorite parts
10:12 were these director chairs that everybody got to sit in
10:15 and it had their name on the back.
10:16 And me, the sole purpose is always to stuff food
10:19 on the sides, but I love sitting in my chair
10:22 and it had my name on the back.
10:24 And I actually got to take the back,
10:26 I actually got to take two of them home.
10:28 One said "The Quest," which was another name for it.
10:30 And one of them said "Coming to America."
10:32 So that was really nice.
10:34 - I got a ponytail that I really wanted.
10:38 (laughs)
10:39 It was very cute.
10:40 And I was like, "Can I please, please have this?"
10:42 And they were like, "Yes."
10:43 - I can't, that's like the second time
10:46 I was asked that today.
10:47 And every time I get asked that,
10:49 I keep wanting to say what I took, but I'm not.
10:52 So, the answer is yes.
10:55 - Is it off camera?
10:55 Are you looking at it right now?
10:57 - I'm just putting it behind you so that we, I would know.
11:02 (laughs)
11:04 - But no, I-
11:06 - No, but I'm in talks of certain items.
11:09 - Did you get to bring anything home?
11:10 Did you get to like bring any like prop
11:12 or any costume or anything?
11:14 - No script that I was given.
11:15 I have a sign and I have it in a safe place.
11:18 - Okay.
11:19 - You look right there in my living room,
11:20 I have one of Michael Jackson's gloves right there.
11:23 - Nice.
11:24 Oh, so are you like a big pop culture collector?
11:26 - No, I'm a Michael Jackson fan.
11:28 - Michael Jackson.
11:28 (laughs)
11:29 - We're almost ready to become a prince.
11:31 - Almost.
11:32 - It is time.
11:33 - Ceremonial circumcision.
11:34 - Bring forward the royal machetes.
11:36 - Machetes?
11:37 - They're going to sharpen you too, nephew.
11:40 (gunshots)
11:44 (laughing)
11:46 ♪ To America now it's coming to me ♪