00:00The one thing I didn't want to do was a bad sequel to a movie that so many a lot of people
00:06have a lot invested in. A lot of people grew up watching coming to America especially. So
00:10you don't want to do you don't want to entertain that.
00:17I was there when it first came out and I was I loved Saul and the barbershop and it was
00:24it was a stroke of brilliance and you know Eddie Murphy was a prince already so seeing him in this
00:30role just was divinely right. I had to have been like 11 I think I think we just fast forwarded
00:41through all the Ranji parts but um that was really cool for me I've never seen or that was one of the
00:47first times I've seen images of black royalty on screen. Clarence the barber he was talking about
00:53Ma looked at the king and how uh he got punched in the chest by him and that's my favorite scene
01:00because I would just record that scene on my phone and it would be my ringtone it would be my uh my
01:06voicemail. First I was like going to make this movie we were like well how do we do this and I had
01:12different ideas none of the ideas came together and I think I saw uh one of those Terminator movies
01:18and it was the one where one of the more recent ones they made Armin look young and it really looked
01:24like it was really Armin. I was like yo we could use that and then that's when the whole idea let's make
01:30that night that we were out in the club meeting all those girls this is what happened later on in that
01:34night and that's when we got the little tool we needed to kind of connect the dots that was started.
01:42That's one of those things Regina when you're reading it you realize that okay the words don't
01:49explain to me what the technology is going to create and that's one of those things you read
01:55it you say okay. Comedically like they went there you know the audacity for them to do it that way I
02:01thought was hilarious. As a fan of the original I'm completely just honored to be you know sort of
02:08implemented in this whole world when they told me how I was woven into the story I laughed my ass off
02:14and I went all right why not all right let's do it let's go for it and they went for it. Coming to
02:20America unlike any of my other films it has to be I would say unlike more than any of my other films
02:28kind of worked its way into the cultural zeitgeist and once the script got right then it was like okay
02:34it's time. Me and Eddie run to get coffee every now and then right and um one day I called him I
02:42said yo I'm great go get a coffee you wanna roll you want me to bring you one and he says no but come
02:47up here as soon as you get finished man there's a coming to America script that I like and he said
02:52you've got to read the script so I went to his house and I got the script and I literally couldn't
02:58go home and read it I'm sitting at his house looking at it and it's making sense. The original
03:04coming to America I'm 26 maybe and uh I'm 59 years so so much has happened 26 with no kids and you know
03:18going to the disco every night that's how long ago it was we used to call it this that's how long ago I can't
03:24even I can't even put into words how much I've changed and how much it's the natural
03:32growth anybody had it's a long it's a long time 32 years ago when this picture came out. I've done it
03:40now I think I'm more fun to be around I'm a chilled guy who has been there and back and uh
03:47uh the I know the importance of just being nice to people how far that goes or how important that is
03:57but at the end of the day the only thing that matters to me is did I make you laugh especially
04:02in the climate that we're living right now I would love for somebody with a mask on from six feet away
04:08in the mall say you made me laugh and I need it. Usually when we see ourselves on the screen it's
04:16heavy things some social injustice or some kind of dark thing coming to America it's all black cast
04:23but the movie's not about race it's not about you know having a foot in your ass or you know get oh wake
04:29up oh yeah keep up alive it's none of those things that you can just go and sit back and watch the movie
04:35and it's about these people and it's about somebody who's trying to find true love so it's like a
04:41fantasy like a fairy tale and that's that's the legacy of the movie that it's it's one of it's
04:46one of the few uh romantic fairy tales with black people
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