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Eddie Murphy has such a knack for transforming into other characters that he once had Jesse Jackson totally fooled.
In 1988’s Coming to America, the Saturday Night Live star played several different roles, including a scene-stealing elderly barbershop owner. The portrayal was so convincing that the civil rights activist shared his gratitude with Murphy for giving the older actor a part.
“When we did the original Coming to America, at the afterparty, Jesse Jackson came up to me and he was like, ‘Hey, you know, I wanna say thank you for looking out for some of the older Black actors and putting them in the film, you know, and giving them a shot because those guys are gonna become stars,'” Murphy said in his Netflix documentary Being Eddie.
Netflix
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about?'” Murphy recalled. “He said, ‘Those guys in the barbershop. Man, they’re funny, and those guys will get famous because of this.'”
“I was like, ‘Motherf—er, that was me,'” Muphy exclaimed, “and he was like, ‘What? What? That was you? Now I got to go see the movie again.'”
Coincidentally, just a few years earlier, Murphy had impersonated Jackson himself on a Feb. 25, 1984 episode of SNL.
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In a move he’d later become known for, Coming to America was the first time the comedian played multiple characters in the same film. Murphy is credited with playing four roles: Prince Akeem Joffer of Zamunda; Randy Watson, a singer with the fictional soul band Sexual Chocolate; Clarence, an elderly Black barbershop owner; and Saul, an elderly Jewish barbershop customer.
It was far from the last time he’d take on various roles in a film. Murphy went on to play three characters in Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), seven in The Nutty Professor (1996), two in Bowfinger (1999), eight in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), and three in Norbit (2007).
Murphy and Coming to America costar Arsenio Hall — who also played four different roles in the movie — returned for the sequel Coming 2 America in 2021, with both actors reviving all of their original characters.
Everett Collection
Murphy elaborated on his love of transformation in the doc, explaining, “When I get a voice or a character, the way my voice sounds, I can lose it completely. There’s no sign of my voice. Characters are like real people.”
He said the passion dates back to childhood, when he’d watch movies like the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Charles Laughton on repeat.
“I’ve always been a fan of makeup movies. There’s some makeup, they turn into another person,” he explained. “I always gravitated to stuff like that. And I watched that stuff over and over and over and over again.”
Being Eddie is on Netflix now.
