Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall claim that they were forced to cast a white person by studio executives in the 1988 comedy movie Coming To America.
The two actors made the claim during a virtual interview on the talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote their upcoming blockbuster Coming 2 America - the long-awaited sequel to the original film.
Watch the full interview with Kimmel here:The original movie saw Murphy play the character of Prince Akeem Joffer - a rich African prince who travels to New York City and poses as a broke college student in order to fall in love and find a bride.
During the interview in question, Kimmel asked Hall and Murphy about the involvement of white comic Louie Anderson in a predominantly African-American cast.
Hall responded by saying that the decision was imposed upon them by Paramount producers, stating: "I love Louie, but I think we were forced to put Louie in it... We were forced to put in a white person."
Take a look at the trailer for the sequel movie in the video below:Murphy then stated: "Paramount was like, because the whole cast was black and this was back in the 80s [...] 'We have to have a white person in the movie'. I was like: 'What?'
"So we thought who is the funniest white guy around? We knew Louie, we knew he was cool, so that's how Louie got in the movie. It was official, 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."
Murphy went on to excitedly talk about the rest of the cast in the upcoming sequel, stating: "What I'm most excited about the audience seeing is how amazing this movie is.
"We have incredible new cast members like Wesley Snipes, Tracy Morgan, Leslie Jones, Jermaine Fowler, KiKi Layne, and my own daughter, Bella Murphy, among others, who are all so funny and really brought their A-game."
Check out the trailer for the original feature here:According to Deadline, the sequel was originally set for a theatrical release on December 18, 2020, before Paramount opted to move the feature to Amazon for exclusive streaming rights instead. The film is now set to drop on March 5, 2021.
