Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall said Paramount required them to cast a white actor in Coming to America, despite the film’s predominantly Black cast. They said the intervention reflected studio attitudes at the time, making the casting decision relevant to wider discussions about representation and creative control in Hollywood.

Hall said the studio presented him with a list of three white comedians and asked whom he preferred to work with; he chose Louie Anderson, whose stand-up he and Murphy admired. Anderson played Maurice, an employee at McDowell’s, in the 1988 comedy and later returned for its 2021 sequel, Coming 2 America.