‘Coming 2 America’: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall discuss playing several roles, casting

March 2 (UPI) — Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall discussed the difficulties of portraying multiple characters on Coming 2 America using makeup and how it’s a thankless job while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Murphy mentioned on Monday how they underwent six hours of makeup to portray all the characters at the barber shop in Coming 2 America, a sequel to their 1988 comedy Coming to America that is hitting Amazon Prime Video on Friday.

“It’s kind of, like, it’s thankless because a lot of people don’t know that that’s us in those makeups,” Murphy said before mentioning how Oprah Winfrey didn’t know the duo portrayed the characters in the barber shop during a recent interview.

Hall then stated that Murphy once used the movie disguise to hit on an elderly woman after makeup artist Rick Baker told the actors to try the makeup out and see how it works.

“He got an old lady’s phone number because she thought he was a real old dude,” Hall said.

“Not only did I call, no never mind,” Murphy said before laughing when asked if he ever contacted the woman.

Kimmel asked the duo about comedian Louie Anderson’s inclusion in the original Coming to America, with Murphy stating that Paramount Pictures forced them to have a white actor in the film. Anderson portrayed Maurice in the comedy.

“The whole cast is black and this was back in the 80s so it was like we have to have a white person, there has to be a white person in the movie,” Murphy said about what Paramount wanted.

“I had a list, they gave me a list with three white guys and they said who would you rather work with. I said Louie,” Hall said, but the actor wouldn’t mention who else was on the list.

Murphy and Hall also discussed how their Coming 2 America co-star Tracy Morgan was originally going to portray Murphy’s son in the sequel. Jermaine Fowler eventually took on the role with Leslie Jones portraying the mother.

“We wrote two, three versions of the script and then we started thinking like, after we started writing for Leslie, we was like, ‘Will people believe that Tracy is me and Leslie’s child’ because he looks like he’s our age and then we started thinking about it differently,” Murphy said.

“I would drop hints because I never liked that idea. I love Tracy, I wanted him in it but I would say to Eddie, ‘Hey maybe for the third one Morgan Freeman can be your son,'” Hall said.