Tell him to laugh at equal opportunities, but Louie Anderson didn’t appear in 1988’s “Coming to America” because stars Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall were dying to share the screen with him.
When they both appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to promote the sequel, “Coming 2 America,” they revealed the real reason.
“I love Louie, but I think we were forced to put Louie in it,” Hall, 65, told the host. “They forced us to put on a white person.”
Murphy, 59, agreed:[The studio was] like, “There must be a white person in the movie.” He would say to me, “What?” So who was the funniest white boy around? We knew Louie was great, so that’s how Louie got into the movie. “
In case there are any doubts about the veracity of this story, Hall referred to the evidence. “It was official,” Hall continued. “I had a list. They gave me a list of three white guys. They said, “Who would you rather work with?” I said Louie. “
Either way, Anderson, who won an Emmy for his performance in the FX comedy “Baskets,” had to do something right: he got to the sequel. He updates his role as Maurice, a Goofball fast food worker at McDowell’s with golden bows.
Aside from Hall’s roster, Anderson has claimed he did a bit to spread the wheels of the casting. In the late 1980s, while eating at Ivy, a popular Beverly Hills celebrity venue, Anderson saw Murphy and his entourage. He told the waiter to put Murphy’s card and company on his credit card. But, as Anderson told the satellite radio team “Sway in the Morning” in 2017, he instructed the waiter, “Don’t tell him until he leaves. I’m not doing it to be a great shot. I do. because I am from the midwest and so we would [it]”.
The next morning, Anderson received a call from Murphy. Not only did he offer thanks for the gesture – “No one ever bought me anything,” Murphy told Anderson, but he also said he wants to release Anderson in “a little movie called ‘Coming to America.’
Surprised by the comic karma, Anderson said, “That’s life, right? It was the best $ 660 I’ve ever spent. “