Eddie Murphy plays a white Jewish man in Coming to America and the 2021 Amazon Prime sequel, Coming 2 America.
During the early '80s, Murphy established himself as a master impressionist while performing on Saul in Coming 2 America may catch some viewers off-guard because of the racial aspect.
The character Saul was originally conceived by John Landis, the director of Coming to America. According to a 2005 interview (via Collider), he'd read a book about Jewish comedians wearing blackface during the vaudeville days (approximately 1880 to 1930), and wanted to comedically address such ignorance by having Murphy - a young Black man - portray an elderly Jewish man. Landis enlisted the Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) to transform Murphy, who subsequently convinced the entire crew that he could pull off the role. In a making-of featurette, Landis reveals that he used Baker's father-in-law as a model for Saul. In Coming to America and the 2021 Amazon Prime sequel, Murphy uses his improvisational skills to comedically complement his portrayal of Clarence - an elderly Black character - and his central protagonist, Akeem, a royal African leader.
During production for Coming to America, the character Saul helped resolve conflict between the filmmaker and star. Landis had previously directed Murphy in the 1983 comedy Trading Places, and wasn't impressed with his on-set demeanor when they reunited for another film, stating "The guy on Trading Places was young and full of energy and curious and funny and fresh and great; the guy on Coming to America was the pig of the world – the most unpleasant, arrogant, bullshit entourage… just an a*****e." When Murphy first transformed into Saul, Landis realized that the makeup "freed" him, and that he seemed to channel the comedic energy that fueled so many of his Saturday Night Live performances and early films:
"Once he was in the makeup, he was just as fresh as when he was nineteen. Once he was in the makeup, he wasn’t Eddie anymore. In fact, the people who made The Nutty Professor said they loved working with Sherman Klump, but they hated working with Eddie Murphy."
In 2019, Murphy publicly apologized for making ignorant jokes in past stand-up specials like Eddie Murphy: Delirious (1983) and Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987). With the character Saul, he honors the legacy of English comedian Peter Sellers, the man who portrayed multiple characters in Stanley's Kubrick's 1964 film Murphy reprises Saul in Coming 2 America for practical purposes (10 performers from the original film return for the sequel), and also to showcase his comedic versatility. After all, Murphy earned a fanbase as a world class impressionist before he evolved into a blockbuster movie star.
